


Snapped

by Eledhwen



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Matt survives the Snap, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), What happens when you live and others die?, a bit angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 16:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19181734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eledhwen/pseuds/Eledhwen
Summary: Matt’s days are punctuated by the heartbeats of others, and the steady pulses of those he counts dearest to him mark the hours passing. From his office he can hear the city going about its business, and next to him, like a bass beat to the music of traffic and voices, are Foggy and Karen’s hearts. It’s a normal day, and they’re all at work on their own cases in their own offices.Until they’re not.Half the world is snapped out of existence. This is not their story. This is the story of the survivors.





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is incomplete, but I'm 6200 words in and it seems to be progressing so I'm risking posting it.
> 
> This is also in a different little 'verse from my other series. So expect a few more identity reveals on the way.

**Day 1**

Matt’s days are punctuated by the heartbeats of others, and the steady pulses of those he counts dearest to him mark the hours passing. From his office he can hear the city going about its business, and next to him, like a bass beat to the music of traffic and voices, are Foggy and Karen’s hearts. It’s a normal day, and they’re all at work on their own cases in their own offices.

Until they’re not.

Matt first realises something is wrong when the sound of traffic abruptly changes. There are at least three crashes in the space of 30 seconds in the neighbouring blocks, and then the noise of screaming. He is on his feet before he thinks about it, and it’s only then he registers the absence of sound in his own building.

Their offices are empty. Matt strains his ears, searching for their voices, their heartbeats; he should be able to hear either Foggy or Karen in a three-block radius, but there is nothing and there has not been time for them to get further away.

He goes to Foggy’s chair, stretches out a hand and his senses, finds only dust, thick and heavy on his friend’s seat. It’s the same in Karen’s office.

Matt tamps down the rising panic, takes several deep breaths, and grabbing his cane from its resting place next to the door, goes downstairs. The Nelsons’ shop is empty too, but on the street there is chaos. People screaming, people crying, sirens, and dust choking the air.

He reaches out and grasps the arm of the closest person he can feel.

“What happened?” he asks. “Tell me what happened?”

“What, you didn’t see?” The man shakes Matt’s hand off his arm, turns, and stammers out an apology. “Hey, man, Jesus. They vanished.”

“Who vanished?” Matt says, his stomach hollow with fear. “How did they vanish?”

“Like half the street just crumbled into nothing,” the man said. “Honest to God. I was buying a bagel, from Nelson’s. The guy behind the counter, suddenly he wasn’t there.”

Matt swallows, leans on his cane for support. Theo. Theo, and Foggy, and Karen. Gone. “Th – thanks,” he says.

He stands and listens to this new world, a world without his best friends, and the decision is easy. Folding his cane, he weaves a path through the crowds and the chaos.

His block is half-empty too. Nobody on the second floor, and people in only two apartments on the third. His neighbour seems to be there, still, but Matt does not have the energy to check on him. In his apartment he jettisons cane and shades and suit and changes, swiftly, into black.

On the roof the sound of police radios is a cacophony. Matt tunes into one, then another, and after a short while establishes that people are being asked to head home while the emergency services deal with the incidents on the streets. He drops on to the fire escape and heads down, back to street level.

He’d expected more looting, but the sirens are falling quiet now and the sidewalks are empty. Matt makes swift progress to the precinct, where a frazzled sergeant is manning the front desk.

“Detective Mahoney?” Matt asks, in a momentary pause in activity.

The sergeant sighs, but picks up his radio and calls for Mahoney. Matt hovers near the desk until the detective arrives, his pulse elevated and smelling of sweat and stress.

“Murdock?” he says, and then takes Matt’s arm and steers him into an interview room, closing the door behind him.

“Foggy?” Mahoney asks, and Matt shakes his head. “Shit,” says the detective, slumping into a chair. “So why are you here?” There is a pause, and his voice changes. “And where’s your cane? You can’t have got here without it.”

Matt takes the opposite chair. “Came to offer help,” he says, and his voice sounds hoarse even to him.

“Don’t think we need lawyers right now,” Mahoney says. “Seen … I mean, have you heard the news? This is global, man. Half the world’s just vanished.”

“Not as a lawyer,” Matt returns. He pulls his mask from his pocket, and puts it on the table.

Mahoney picks up the bit of cloth, silently. Matt hears him run it through his fingers with a faint rasp of fabric, and then hold it up, apparently to his eyes, before he holds it out.

“Put it on, then,” he says, and Matt obeys. “Christ, I was blind,” Mahoney exclaims.

Matt, despite himself, finds his lips turning up in a brief smile. “No more than anyone else,” he says.

“Does … shit, did Foggy know?” asks the detective.

“Yeah, Foggy knew,” Matt admits. “Before you ask: no, I can’t see. Not in the usual way. But I can hear, and feel, and smell, better than anyone.”

“Anyone?” Mahoney’s voice is full of scepticism.

“Now’s not the time to be questioning things, Brett,” Matt says, putting persuasion into his own voice. “Trust me. I can help you. You must be short-handed. When night falls, there’ll be violence. Let me help.”

“By punching the lights out of anyone who gets in your way?” Mahoney asks, resigned. “You’re asking me to sanction vigilantism, Murdock.”

“Yeah.” Matt shrugs. “I guess I am. But we don’t need lawyers right now and I’m not going to keep on pretending I can’t do something, when I can.”

Abruptly, Mahoney pushes back his chair and stands up. “Sure. Whatever. Never won an argument with you yet and I ain’t going to try now. I’ll give you a radio, tell dispatch you’re with us. If you do one thing for me.”

Matt stands too. “What?”

“Check on my mom,” Mahoney says. “Phone lines are down. I just need to know, either way.”

Pacing the interview room, Matt waits while Brett fetches him a radio and then shows him how to use it. Mask off, he is led out to a rear exit, where he puts the mask on again and, with a nod in Brett’s general direction, heads up to the rooftops.

Things are still quiet on the streets save for the occasional police car, but inside every home Matt can hear televisions and radios blaring, or the tinny sound of laptop speakers, as the citizens of Hell’s Kitchen tune into the news to try and make sense of what has happened. The noise helps him forget the silence elsewhere. There ought to be traffic, and voices, and the subway rumbling underneath it all, but instead there is a soft deadened sense to this new world – as though the dust of a million bodies has muffled everything else.

He makes it swiftly to Bess Mahoney’s house and listens. There is a heartbeat from within, but he does not know her well enough to be certain it belongs to her. Matt stuffs the mask in his pocket and, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, knocks on the front door.

Bess opens it a crack a few minutes later, a waft of cigars and spices drifting out into the street.

“Ms Mahoney?” Matt says. “Brett sent me. Wanted to check you were okay.”

“Matthew?” She opens the door wider. “You’re on your own?” She pauses, and is clearly looking him up and down. “Well.”

“Can I tell Brett you’re okay?” Matt asks, wanting to get back out on the streets.

“Sure, honey,” Bess says. “And you look after yourself, you hear me? We need you safe. Always have.” She reaches out and squeezes a gloved hand. “Thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” says Matt, although he is pretty certain Bess Mahoney, being Bess Mahoney, has seen the black outfit and the lack of any aids and come to the right answer. “I’ll let Brett know you’re well. He’ll be by later, if he gets off.”

“Go!” she says, closing the door. He hears the chain go on, and retrieving the radio from the harness Brett gave him radios in the news.

As the morning turns into afternoon, and afternoon into night, Matt patrols. He finds a few more people injured in car accidents who had not been picked up by the emergency services, and radios the precinct with their location and a list of injuries. He takes one lost little girl right to the precinct and accepts a cup of atrocious coffee and a cookie full of chemicals in return.

It feels weird, walking the streets in daylight in his Daredevil gear. People are wary of him; the cops excessively polite, those he helps excessively grateful. It is almost as though, in the absence of the Avengers, everyone sees him as an answer to their prayers.

Before night falls properly Matt stops at the church, having avoided the visit all day. He knows it is probably more than he deserves for his mother to be there, but as the nuns shepherd their small charges out of the building after evening Mass, her familiar light tread is there among them. Matt takes a step forward towards them, and her heart stutters a beat before settling again. She knows he’s alive.

As he had predicted, once night comes the looters come out. He can’t quite keep up, but he can tell the cops where to go and deal with those he cannot handle. There is significant damage to stores across Hell’s Kitchen, and Matt is bruised and sore long before midnight, but he drives on with the satisfaction of achieving something useful.

By three in the morning the streets are falling quiet again. His boots fall soft on the dust coating the pavements and Matt supresses a shudder at the thought he is walking among those he used to pass by every day. The couriers, the street cleaners, the guys in the food trucks.

A police car comes to a halt next to him as he stands on a street corner listening. “Detective Mahoney says go and sleep,” the officer says, voice hesitant and a little wary. “Says you can come back tomorrow, if you want. And, uh, thanks.”

Matt considers arguing, and staying out, but he knows his limits. He hands over the police radio.

“Tell Detective Mahoney he needs his rest too,” he adds.

“Man, we all need rest,” the officer says. “Gonna be a long few weeks.”


	2. Week 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Four days after the Snap, as the media have taken to calling it, his knuckles are a mess and his torso black and blue. But Mahoney tells him, not without pride, that Hell’s Kitchen is about the calmest place in Manhattan right now. The serious criminals know to stay away from the Devil’s fists._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for all the kudos and comments. This is progressing, and I'll aim to post a chapter a week if I can.

**Week 1**

The days blur into one. At some point on the second day Matt finds himself near the shabby apartment-cum-office belonging to Jessica Jones, and he goes up. The office door is swinging open and the place already smells musty. He bites down the urge to throw something across the room, and leaves in search of something more worthwhile to hit.

He eats occasionally and badly – scavenging food from the precinct, or being forced into eating a sandwich by Mahoney – and four days after the Snap, as the media have taken to calling it, his knuckles are a mess and his torso black and blue. But Mahoney tells him, not without pride, that Hell’s Kitchen is about the calmest place in Manhattan right now. The serious criminals know to stay away from the Devil’s fists.

Matt has gone back to his apartment to shower and change into a clean top when the knock on the door comes. He drapes a towel over his shoulders and goes to answer it, barefooted and shirtless.

Marci Stahl is on the other side, and Matt realises in a rush of guilt he had not even thought of finding her, to tell her about Foggy.

“Foggy’s gone, right?” she says, straight out, and Matt remembers he had always liked Marci’s directness.

“Yeah.” He holds open the door. “D’you want to come in?”

Marci, tears rising in her throat but holding them in, walks past him and sits on the couch. “I tried calling, but the phones were down, and they said it was better to stay at home,” she explains, “but it got to the point I couldn’t wait longer. I knew. I guess I knew the moment it happened.”

He goes to the kitchen, finds two glasses and his best Scotch, and pours them both a generous measure. She takes the glass when he proffers it, and gulps down half at once. “Thanks,” she says.

“I miss him,” Matt admits, sitting down opposite her and cradling his own glass in his hand. “These last couple of days …”

Marci makes a noise of agreement, and swallows another gulp of whisky. “You know he’d asked me to marry him?” she says.

“I know you said no,” Matt agrees.

“I wish I hadn’t,” Marci says, and now the tears are running freely down her cheeks. “He was a good man. The best.”

She fumbles in her purse for a pack of tissues. Matt lets her cry; refills her glass and sits until the tears have subsided. He wishes he could cry, too, for Foggy and Karen and Jessica Jones, but he’s still more angry than anything else.

Eventually Marci stops crying and takes several deep breaths.

“You don’t need to talk,” Matt says. “Stay as long as you need.” He puts the bottle on the coffee table, and goes into his bedroom to dig a fresh black top from the drawers. When he comes out, tugging it down over his chest, he hears a hitch in Marci’s breathing.

“I hadn’t realised. Matt, you look like you’ve been beaten half to death.”

He shrugs. It’s not so far from the truth.

Her tone sharpens. “And I’ve _never_ seen you without those ridiculous red glasses.”

Matt hasn’t worn them since the day of the Snap. They’re probably on his dresser. He rubs self-consciously at his eyes.

“Okay, Murdock,” Marci says, “what’s going on?”

Matt hesitates. He’s kept so much a secret for so long that revealing anything feels uncomfortable – not least to Marci, who has long been an awkward third wheel in his friendship with Foggy. But Foggy is gone, and she is a link to the past, and he finds that he doesn’t particularly want to lose that, not now.

He sits down again, leans his elbows on his knees and focuses on where he can sense Marci.

“I’m Daredevil,” he says. “I’m helping the police.”

She laughs, slightly hysterically, the tears still not far away. “Of course you are,” she says. “Explains everything. Try again.”

“I’m Daredevil,” Matt insists. “I was taught to fight after I was blinded. The accident gave me enhanced senses.”

She shifts, and raises a hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I can’t tell that,” says Matt. “But you had a hot dog on the way here, and your shampoo smells of coconut.”

Marci drops her hand into her lap. “Jesus, Murdock, that’s creepy.”

He bows his head. “Yeah, I know. F-Foggy used to tell me that all the time.”

“Foggy _knew_?”

“Foggy knew,” he confirms. “Didn’t like it, but he knew.”

“Foggy Bear, keeping a secret like that,” Marci marvels. “So, like, the being beaten half to death, not really just a look.”

“Not so much,” Matt agrees. He stands up, and feeling her eyes on his back, retrieves his batons from the cupboard where he had thrown them when he came in, then ties on the mask. “Stay as long as you need to,” he repeats. “Check in, when you need to. You can get me through the 15th precinct, or I guess the phones will be back up at some point.”

She makes a small assenting noise, and he takes that as his cue to leave.

He stays out the rest of the afternoon, night and into the morning and when he finally gets home the apartment still smells of coconut shampoo and Scotch. He opens windows, showers off the latest set of scabs and blood, and collapses into bed for a few hours of fitful sleep.

Later, a little refreshed, Matt checks in with Brett Mahoney around the back of the precinct. Mahoney sounds as tired as Matt himself feels, but he has news.

“They’re sending in the military, finally,” he says.

“Army?” Matt asks. “Why?”

“Keep public order. Bringing them home from deployment to patrol the streets of Manhattan. Crazy world, Murdock.” Mahoney shifted his feet. “I managed to see my mom. She said it was good to see you, last week.”

“I think she guessed, about …” Matt gestures at himself. Mahoney laughs.

“Hell yeah. Bess Mahoney ain’t nobody’s fool. But she also told me to tell you that the Kitchen still needs lawyers. There’s plenty of folk who lost a partner who didn’t have a will, or who lost a job, that type of thing. And I don’t reckon the Army will look kindly on vigilantes. We know better here, but some out there are blaming this whole thing on the Avengers.”

Matt frowned. “I’m no Avenger, Brett.”

“Not saying you are,” the detective said. “But you’re not quite normal either. And you haven’t got that costume you had. If a soldier decides to shoot at the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, will you get out of the way in time?”

Matt decides not to argue. There is deep weariness in Mahoney’s voice, and concern. Right now, the detective is the closest thing Matt has to a friend, and that matters.

“I’ll think about it,” he says. “Tomorrow.”

Mahoney sighs, and hands over a charged radio. “Channel 5.”

Taking it, Matt nods and heads out.

The next day, after patrol, a few more hours of interrupted sleep, and breakfast, Matt puts on jeans and a t-shirt and finds the keys to the office. He has not wanted to go back, not in the week since the Snap, but Mahoney’s words have been in his head.

He goes in the back way, breathing shallowly; as he had got close to the shop the stench of rotting food had been overwhelming. He realises he had not even thought of trying to contact Foggy and Theo’s parents, and another wave of guilt crashes over him. Either they, too, could not stomach seeing what had happened to their sons, or they were also gone.

In the office the smell is present but manageable. Dust has already settled on the shelves and the desks; Matt runs a finger along the edge of the counter in the little kitchenette and feels the grittiness of a week’s neglect on his skin.

Going into Foggy’s office, he pulls out the chair and touches the seat again. The ash that was his best friend still lies deep on the cracked leather, smelling of mustiness and decay and not at all of Foggy.

Matt’s legs give way under him and he sinks to the floor, back against the wall, and he lets go. Seven days of denial flood out and he sits alone, amid a life that has gone, and cries for Foggy and for Karen and Theo, and all the others who were snatched out of existence.

Eventually the tears stop and he rubs angrily at sore, useless eyes, puts his glasses back on, and gets up to find boxes.

It takes a couple of hours to shovel papers into cartons – Matt’s not sure what he’s collecting, but he is sure he cannot stay in the office to go through it. He’ll need help from somewhere, but for now, the task is simple: gather the remains of Nelson, Murdock & Page and take them home.

On the top of the pile of papers in one of the boxes he adds the line of plastic dinosaurs which had once ranged across the divider in their Landman & Zack cupboard. After that, he carries the boxes down to the back door before going up to the office one last time.

Karen had kept the shoebox in which Ben Ulrich had once given her a pile of cuttings about Wilson Fisk. Matt takes it out from her drawer and tips out the cuttings, running the paper through his fingers before dumping it in the trash. Next, more tenderly, he brushes the dust on the empty seats in their offices into the shoebox and puts the lid on.

By some miracle he finds a cab relatively quickly, and the cabbie is decent enough to help carry the boxes back up to Matt’s apartment for an extra twenty dollars.

It is early afternoon. Matt lifts the lid off one of the boxes, runs his hand over the papers – which might as well be blank, for all he can feel – and then he abruptly puts the lid back on and stands up. He finds a plastic bag for the shoebox, wraps it up and tucks it into a rucksack; retrieves his cane from the corner where it has stood for a week, and heads out again.

The subway has been running a reduced service since the day after the Snap. Matt has never enjoyed travelling on it, but he has done so when necessity has arisen and now, with less than half the normal numbers, it is bearable at least. The stench of sweat and food and unwashed hair and clothes still swamps him, but he counts the stops and holds his breath as much as possible, and survives what is, after all, a short journey.

From the subway station he knows the way to the Nelsons’ house. He’s known it for a decade, ever since Foggy first took him home at Thanksgiving. His cane taps the three steps up to the front door and he stands there, listening for signs of life within. There is one heartbeat. He knocks, and waits.

Anna Nelson lets out a gasp when she sees him, and then he is enveloped in a deep, long hug, the familiar smell of her baking in his nose. “Matthew, it’s _so_ good to see you,” she says. “Come in. Please come in.”

He follows her in, and she closes the door and tucks her hand in his elbow. She knows he does not need it, knows he knows the house well enough, but Matt thinks that perhaps she just needs the contact and he lets her lead him into the kitchen and push him into a chair.

“I hoped you’d come,” Anna says.

“I …” Matt is at a loss, awash in her warmth. “It’s … Foggy and Theo.”

She sits down next to him, and takes his hand. “I know, Matthew. I went to the deli, four days ago. The guy in the launderette down the street, he said … he told me. But he said he’d seen you, that you were okay.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Matt says. “I got ... kind of caught up in stuff. What about the rest of the family? Mr Nelson?”

“Gone to the store,” Anna replies. “He made it. His brother Tim’s gone. Some of the kids.” Matt bows his head and she pats his hand. “At least it was quick.”

Matt squeezes her hand and pulls his away to unzip his bag and extract the shoebox. “I couldn’t just leave it. Leave them,” he says, as she unwraps the bag and looks inside, with a gasp and a little sob. “Later, maybe, I was hoping … well, a Mass, or something. But now, to let them go. On the river, perhaps. It’s not Theo,” he hurries to add. “I couldn’t … the shop … it needs emptying, and cleaning.”

Anna reaches out and touches his shoulder. “I understand,” she says. “Going to the shore would be nice. We’d be lucky, to say goodbye.”

She stands and goes to the kitchen counter. “Ted will be home soon. We can go out then. Coffee?”

He accepts, and listens as she boils the kettle, digs out mugs with a clink of china, busies herself with the French press. It is a warming, familiar set of sounds. In some ways, Anna Nelson is more a mother to him than Sister Maggie, though she does not know him, not properly. She still thinks of him as her son’s blind friend.

“What are you doing, then, now?” Anna asks, putting a cup of coffee before him, handle angled neatly out to 3 o’clock so he can easily find it. It’s not necessary, but Matt appreciates the thought. He picks up the cup and drinks. How much to tell her, this achingly kind woman who he loves dearly?

“I’m going to restart the practice,” he says, putting the cup down. “I … I didn’t want to, this last week, but there are people needing advice. I thought I might ask Marci Stahl to help me.”

He can’t see it, but he knows Anna’s face has wrinkled a little at Marci’s name. The two women have met only a few times, Matt knows, but they are too different to get on easily. “She’s a good lawyer,” he says, finding himself defending Marci. “And she did really care for Foggy.”

Anna sniffs. “Well, Matthew, you know best when it comes to the law.”

He asks her about the Nelsons’ neighbours, and she talks through the list of the living and the vanished until Ted Nelson comes home, clutching a meagre bag of groceries.

“No juice, precious few fruit and vegetables,” he complains, coming through the door. “Oh, hey, Matt.”

They shake hands, and Anna tells her husband why Matt has come.

“That’s good of you, son,” Ted says.

Matt carries the box under one arm, the other gripping Anna’s elbow lightly, as they make their way to the riverbank. Once there, Ted takes the lid off, and there is a pause.

“Do we just tip it out?” Anna asks, hesitant.

“You’re clever with words, Matt,” Ted says. “Say something, and I’ll let it go.”

Matt thinks. There is so much he wishes he could have said to Foggy – to thank him, for being there and putting up with so much. To tell him he misses him. To say that Foggy’s friendship has been the most important thing in his life.

But now is not the time. After a moment’s consideration, a prayer comes to mind, and he speaks the words into the wind as the dust is scattered on the wind, to settle in the cold waters of the Hudson.

“Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.”

Anna is crying, softly, and Matt lets her lean her head into his shoulder. Ted’s arm comes around both of them.

Eventually, they head back to the Nelsons’. Anna tries to make Matt stay for dinner but he manages to extricate himself with an excuse about wanting to be back before night. It’s not even a lie: after the events of the day, he wants nothing more than to put on his suit and go out.

There’s no sign of the Army yet on the streets, and Hell’s Kitchen is much quieter than the part of Matt which needs to hit things wants it to be. The rational half of his brain tells him this is good, but by 2am the Devil in him is raging. He takes the police radio to Fogwell’s, and with it buzzing routine checks in his ears, takes out his frustration and grief on the bag.


	3. Month 1 (part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was getting long and clunky so I divided it into two and am posting the first half now. A bit concerned that posting is soon to catch up with writing ... thanks for continued comments! :)

Two days later, the phone network is back, and Matt calls Marci. She sounds a little brighter, and agrees to meet him at Josie’s – Josie, it turns out, is indestructible, and so is her bar.

Marci greets him with a touch of reserve, accepts a neat vodka, and leans back on her stool. “So, hit me, Murdock.”

“I want to ask you to work with me,” Matt says, knowing beating about the bush with Marci is a waste of time. “I want to start up the practice again. People round here need help. I can’t do it alone. I need someone who can read the files, sign papers. It was hard enough … before … getting stuff in Braille. I need a partner.”

“You’re telling me you can tell what I ate three days ago, but you can’t read a bit of paper?” Marci says.

“I’m still blind,” Matt points out. “I can’t work with flat things. Paper, mirrors, signs. And there’s too much to do by myself.”

Marci swills her vodka around her glass. It makes a gentle, oily, wet noise. Then she picks up the glass and swallows the contents in one. “Why me?” she asks.

“You’re a good lawyer,” Matt says.

“Oh wow, generous, Murdock,” Marci throws back. “I’m a bloody brilliant lawyer and you know it.”

“You care about people. You cared about Foggy,” Matt goes on, not rising to her bait. “You’re honest. And I don’t need to lie to you.”

“Not anymore,” says Marci, and waves at Josie for another glass of vodka.

“Not anymore,” Matt agrees.

“I have a job,” Marci says. “A good job. It pays me. Actual money. Not pie.”

Matt laughs. “I don’t intend to accept pie. It wasn’t a profitable business model. We might not make much money, but this is stuff that needs doing.”

She puts down her glass and, unexpectedly, reaches out to rest her hand over his. Her skin is soft and smells of some expensive hand cream. “I can’t replace Foggy, Matt. I won’t try. And I like my job. Hogarth’s not all bad, you know; in fact I think she’d probably be one of the few to take your case if you needed it.”

There’s a “but” lingering in the air, and Matt waits for it.

“But I’ll help a bit,” Marci continues. “I can go through the files, scan any which look like you might need them. Might be able to lend you an intern if you want. We’ve still got our pro bono targets to hit despite the Snap.” She pats his hand. “Well?”

Matt turns his palm and squeezes her hand once. It’s not what he’d hoped for, but it’s more than he had expected.

“Deal,” he says.

She drains her second glass. “Files at your office?”

“My apartment,” he says. “Couldn’t … can’t work at the office, not now.”

“I’ll send a courier around for them in the morning,” Marci says, sliding off her stool and straightening her skirt. “And so we’re clear, Murdock, you owe me a favour for this.”

“Yeah.”

He listens to her slide a note over the bar to Josie and leave with the click of expensive heels.

The next week is a blur of activity. Marci is true to her word and the courier arrives promptly at 9.30 the following morning to collect the boxes of files Matt cannot read. He spends the rest of that day and the next at his kitchen table, going through those documents stored electronically and establishing which ones will never reach a conclusion, because one or both parties was Snapped, and which ones have a chance of progression.

On the evening of the second day Marci’s courier returns with the files, neatly sorted into separate folders, and a thumb drive of scanned documents, so Matt spends the third day going through those too.

He goes out patrolling that night for the first time in several days, just to keep the threat of Daredevil alive, although the streets remain quiet. Brett Mahoney is off duty but the sergeant who hands over the radio in the evening sounds cheerful and relaxed.

“Weight’s off all our backs, starting Friday,” he adds, after telling Matt which channel communications are on this evening. “Army arrives then.”

“Taken them long enough,” Matt says.

“Other priorities,” the sergeant says. “After all, most cities ain’t got a Daredevil and an Iron Fist and a Hero of Harlem around to look after them. It’s a miracle you all made it, that’s what I say.”

“Sure is,” Matt agrees, and nods a farewell. As he makes his way up to the rooftops he reflects that Luke Cage and Danny Rand are two more people he hadn’t even though about trying to contact, in the mad fortnight since the Snap. Two more friends he ought to try and speak to.

By noon the next day Matt has compiled a list of clients to call, and after stepping out to get a sandwich – the bread slightly stale, the cheese plasticky and unappetising – he gets to work. Some pick up. Others do not. Some are pleased to hear from him, and keen to resume their cases; others say that since the Snap they’ve realised there are more important things in life than minor legal matters. But by the end of the day he has five or six clients with live cases, and three or four of them willing to pay real money.

It is Thursday. With the military presence due to begin the following day, he ends work early and puts on his Daredevil outfit – not because there is a need to, but because despite his conversation with Mahoney he knows the detective has a point. The costume has no protection, not against a bullet, and the soldiers will not trust a vigilante.

And so Matt spends the night on the roofs of his city, leaping free from rooftop to rooftop because he can. He takes down a mugger, stops a thief from breaking into a car, and is given a free (terrible) cup of coffee by a waitress in an all-night diner near the location of the failed car robbery.

He ends the night sitting on the ledge on his own roof, mask off, just listening to the city. The sounds are beginning to return to normal now; quieter, because there are fewer cars and fewer people, but the background buzz of chatter and electricity is back. It gives Matt a sense of optimism, that perhaps they will make it through this.

The Army roll into Manhattan mid-morning on Friday. Matt is going through a document, earbud in, but the rumble of the heavy vehicles cuts right through the voice of his screen reader. They’re mostly heading north, up along 8th Avenue towards Central Park, but some have turned off and are coming through the Kitchen. Matt supposes they must be heading towards the Intrepid Museum, which he has heard has been repurposed to once again house troops.

The sound of the engines and the vibrations they’re sending through his apartment halt all useful work for a good 20 minutes, and it’s another 10 before he’s able to settle back down. After that, though, he gets some useful work done and in the afternoon he’s able to meet his first client for several weeks with a sense of being well-prepared. As they talk through the client’s options – it’s a fairly straightforward dispute over property ownership – Matt remembers why he became a lawyer in the first place. He ends the day feeling more positive than he has done since the morning of the Snap.

With the Army on the streets it makes sense for Daredevil to lie low for at least a few nights, so in the evening he puts on glasses and takes up his cane and goes to confession. The new priest – the younger, trendier replacement for Father Lantom – is a good man, but Matt has not yet got to the point where he feels able to talk about the Devil with him.

He restricts his confession to talking about the weight of guilt, that he’s survived and so many have not, and that he’s not made any effort to contact many of those he knows. The priest listens, reassures him many others are in the same boat, and sends him away with some Hail Marys.

Matt is done with the penance and is sitting, breathing in the scent of incense layered with the wood and varnish of the pews and the smoke from candles when his mother sits down next to him. She touches his arm, briefly, and folds her hands in her lap.

“I wish you’d come earlier,” she says, but without rancour.

“Yeah.” Matt does not try to focus on her. “It’s been … busy.”

“I heard.” Sister Maggie’s voice has a smile in it. “People kept coming in and saying the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had put the fear of God into anyone trying anything illegal. They’re grateful, Matthew.”

“Daredevil might have to take a break,” Matt says, softly. “Don’t want to risk it, with the soldiers out there. Not for a few nights, anyway.”

“How do you feel about that?” his mother asks.

He shrugs. “I’ll go to Fogwell’s, if I have to.”

“You’re so like your father,” Maggie murmurs, her voice so low that nobody but Matt would have heard it. “Have a problem, go and hit something.”

“Yeah, well,” Matt says, “it works.” He picks up his folded cane. “And I’m practising again. Law, I mean. So if someone has a problem … well, get them to call.”

Maggie’s voice now is full of affection. “I’m glad, Matthew.” She pauses. “Come to Mass. Don’t be a stranger.”

He stands up, moves out of the pew and flicks open the cane. “I’ll try. I won’t promise. But I’ll try.”

“That’s good enough,” she says.


	4. Month 1 (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In the evenings he goes to Fogwell’s and beats the living hell out of the bags. It isn’t the same as being out on the streets, but the thud of his fists into the old cracked leather helps his mood, helps him sleep. The nights he doesn’t go, he lies awake listening to the city, worrying about clients, and missing Foggy so deeply it hurts._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates likely to remain slowish, but I'm still writing ...

The following day, Saturday, dawns warm. Matt has slept surprisingly well – perhaps the best night’s sleep he’s had for a fortnight – and he wakes full of energy. He does a couple of hours’ work and then gives up and hits the streets, heading north. Every now and then the clunk of army boots and the smell of gun oil wash over him as he passes soldiers on patrol.

He keeps walking, right up into Harlem, the street smells and sounds subtly changing, his sense of the world around him expanding into Harlem’s wide avenues. And then he realises he’s lost – out of familiar territory. All he knows is the name of the place he’s heading to. He twists the cane handle between his hands, takes a few deep breaths, and centres himself.

There’s a grocery store a block ahead, so he goes in, asks for a bottle of water and directions. The store owner is decent enough to call her son, and suddenly Matt has a guide.

“Do you know Luke Cage?” the boy asks, as they’re heading back on to the street.

“Yeah – a little bit,” Matt confirms. “Do you know him?”

“ _Everybody_ round here knows him,” says the boy. “He’s awesome. He’s a hero.”

“Yes he is,” Matt agrees. “There been much trouble round here, since the …”

The boy snaps his fingers. “Not too much. People stick together in Harlem. Here, this is the Paradise.”

Matt turns his head, picks out the sound of a jazz trumpet from inside a building. The boy is talking to the bouncer, and after a moment the door opens. The sound of the trumpet grows.

“Thanks,” he says to the kid.

Inside, the music volume rises to the point Matt finds himself wincing slightly. He stands just inside the door and listens until his ears have adjusted and he can pick out the thundering, steady heartbeat of the person he’s come to find. It underlays the trumpet, slightly out of sync, but beating irrevocably in its own rhythm.

Matt heads up the stairs, using his cane automatically, because he has it, to count the treads. At the end of a passageway there’s a door, slightly ajar; he pushes it open.

“Not now … oh. Matt.” The thundering heartbeat skips a beat, and then settles down again. “Yeah. Heard you’d made it. Wondered if you’d check in.”

“Luke.” Matt comes into the room properly, the tap of his cane sending an echo around it. It’s a big room, with plenty of wood panelling and a big glass window. It sounds expensive and very unlike Luke Cage. “How did you know I was alive?”

“I read the papers,” Luke says, matter-of-fact. “I spent long enough in the Kitchen to check the _Bulletin_ ’s headlines, and they all said Daredevil was keeping order.” He comes around a desk, pulls out a chair, perches on the edge of the desk; it creaks gently as his weight settles on it. “Sit down, Murdock.”

Matt sits, folding his cane as he does and putting it on the table in front of him. “I’m … I should have got in touch sooner,” he says.

“Why?” Luke asks. “Didn’t get in touch with you either. Been a lot on for both of us, I’d say.”

“Yeah.” Matt fiddles with his glasses. “Jess … Jessica didn’t make it.”

Luke’s pulse barely wavers. “Did you know?” Matt asks.

“We haven’t … hadn’t spoken much for a while,” Luke says. “Not before Midland Circle, not after.”

It’s not an answer to Matt’s question, but it’s not not an answer either. “Has there been much trouble, here?” he asks. “The kid who showed me the way said not.”

Luke shrugs, and Matt’s close enough that he hears the pull of fabric against the other man’s shoulders and the faint creak of tendons and joints. “Most of the trouble was last year,” he says. “Lady who owned this place got into some bad shit. More bad shit happened. I ended up with a nightclub.”

“And … Claire?” Matt is afraid to ask. Claire is someone else he should have tried to call, and she definitely counts as a friend.

“Yeah, she’s alive,” Luke confirms, and Matt feels some of the tension slip away. “We’re not – well, it was a while back. But she’s running her clinic, out in Spanish Harlem. Guess you didn’t check in on Danny either, right?”

Matt shakes his head, and Luke grunts. “He’s running around Brooklyn doing what you’re doing in Hell’s Kitchen, more or less. Colleen didn’t make it. Misty Knight, remember her?”

“Detective?” Matt checks. “Helped us out with the Hand?”

“Lost an arm to the Hand,” Luke says, “not that it makes a difference. Turns out Danny Rand’s expensive prosthetic crumbles into dust just as well as flesh.” He stands up and crosses the room, and there’s the chink of glass and the pop as a cork is pulled from a liquor bottle. “Whiskey, or something, to toast them?”

“Scotch, if you’ve got it,” says Matt, and wonders why he still cares about the type of drink he’s drinking in a world where so much has gone so very wrong. Luke pours the Scotch, and then uncorks a different bottle and pours himself a generous measure of rye. He brings the glasses across, and holds Matt’s out, without specifying where it is. Matt takes it, and they toast with a ring of crystal.

“To Colleen, and Misty, and Jess,” Luke says.

“Foggy, and Karen, and Theo, and Jess,” Matt responds. He drinks; the Scotch is warm in his throat, the flavours complex. He savours the mouthful. “This is good.”

“Previous owner left the booze,” Luke says, “and the crystal. She liked her liquor. God knows how long it’ll last.”

“You’re keeping the place open?” asks Matt.

“Folk need somewhere to let their hair down, times like these,” Luke says. “You’re welcome to stay, listen to some jazz?”

Matt finishes his Scotch and shakes his head. “I ought to get back to the Kitchen,” he says, standing and finding his cane. “Work to do.”

“Punching people work?” asks Luke, moving back the other side of the desk.

“Lawyer work,” says Matt. “Daredevil is … well, with the military on the streets, I’m staying off them, for a while.”

Luke laughs, his voice rumbling through Matt’s body. “I give you a week, max.” Matt laughs too, and holds out his hand. Luke grasps it. “Good to see you, Murdock.”

“Yeah, good to see you too,” Matt says.

He walks out to Luke’s splutter at the bad joke, makes it to the subway, and is home before night falls.

Legal work proves enough to keep Matt’s mind occupied the next few days. He’s using the diner down the street as a venue to meet clients – he doesn’t want to go back to the office just yet – and on Tuesday Brett Mahoney comes in just as one of the clients is leaving. Matt knows he’s entered as soon as the door opens, but waits until Mahoney approaches his table and greets him.

“Mind if I join you?” Mahoney asks.

“Sure.” Matt clears files off the table and puts them on the bench by his side.

“Busy?”

“Pretty busy,” Matt agrees. “Your mom was right, people do need help.” The server brings over a cup and fills it with coffee for Mahoney before refilling Matt’s cup. “What’s the word out on the streets, about the military?” Matt asks, once she has gone.

Mahoney picks up the coffee and drinks before answering, putting the cup down on the table with a slight sigh. “Weirdly quiet,” he says. “Couple of drunk fights. Minor theft from a store. Nothing anyone needs worry about, I’d say.” He emphasises the ‘anyone’.

Matt rubs at his knuckles, where the scabs are nearly entirely healed. “No clue what you mean,” he says, flashing a smile in Mahoney’s direction.

The detective laughs, but then grows serious again. “I don’t get it,” he says. “How I didn’t see it before I’ll never know.”

“You were looking at the mask, not the face beneath it,” Matt points out.

“I guess.” Mahoney drinks more coffee. “I was always that guy who said Clark Kent’s friends were crazy for not realising he was Superman. Now I’m one of the friends.”

Matt’s phone buzzes a notification at him, and he checks his watch. “Sorry, Brett, I have another client. But look, if things change out there, you know where I am.”

Mahoney finishes his coffee and gets up. “Sure thing.”

The clients keep coming. Matt calls Marci and gets her to send him an intern to help him out, and in the evenings he goes to Fogwell’s and beats the living hell out of the bags. It isn’t the same as being out on the streets, but the thud of his fists into the old cracked leather helps his mood, helps him sleep. The nights he doesn’t go, he lies awake listening to the city, worrying about clients, and missing Foggy so deeply it hurts.

A month on from the Snap, there is a vigil in Central Park. Matt gets a text from Luke Cage, telling him that he and Claire and Danny Rand will all be there.    He gets another from the Nelsons, and then Sister Maggie calls him to let him know the St Agnes’ nuns and orphans will all be present.

The park is packed with people, and it isn’t until Matt has located Luke’s unique, deep heartbeat amid the crowd that he feels his own racing pulse start to settle. In the absence of a Foggy to ground himself, he needs something powerful, and he gravitates towards the sound.

Claire sounds genuinely happy to see him as she embraces him before looking him up and down. “You look … uninjured,” she says.

“Army, keeping me off the streets,” Matt explains, before being enveloped in another hug by Danny, who has lost weight but still has lean strength in his arms.

“Not out of choice, then,” Claire says. “Well, I’m glad.”

He stands with his friends for the vigil. There are prayers, by priests and rabbis and imans. The mayor makes an appearance and thanks the Army for keeping order. Luke snorts, and Danny makes a spluttering, offended noise. Nearby, Matt hears someone say, “yeah, like they’ve done anything. Where were they when the looters were on the streets? Thank Daredevil, that’s what I say.”

He smiles to himself.

There is a two minutes’ silence, although in this throng of people it will never be truly silent. People cough, cry, shuffle their feet, sniff. But there is no traffic noise – the vigil is being observed across the city.

After the silence there is music, and Matt says goodbye to the others and goes to find his mother. She is briskly keeping control of the children, but there is enough space and time for a brief chat, to check up on each other.

He calls Anna Nelson next, and discovers she and her husband are close to the orphans. Now that he focuses he can find both the Nelsons in the crowd, but for form’s sake he waits with Sister Maggie until they arrive, does the introductions – skipping over his exact relationship with the nun – and is swept off in Anna’s warmth.

They get coffee from a stand and miraculously find an empty bench.

“The store’s clean, now,” Anna Nelson says, as they sip coffee. It is burnt, and he grimaces to himself. “You could move back in, if you want.”

“That’s kind,” Matt says, “but I’m not making much money right now. I’ll stick to my apartment. If … if you don’t mind, of course. What will you do with the store?”

Edward Nelson sighs. “Sell it. We can’t run it.”

“If you need a lawyer,” says Matt, “I’ll … I mean I’d be happy to help. I wish you didn’t have to sell, but you should get the most you can for the place.”

“Oh, Matthew,” Anna says. “If you’re not too busy.”

“I can always find time for you,” Matt returns, and means it. “I need to go, but please call.”

He accepts a hug from her, and makes his excuses. He’s done his bit for the day, and there are clients who need help.


	5. Year 1 (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _People are adaptable, but his fingers and fists still itch for action. It has been two months now since he put on the mask and went out on to the streets – and in truth, there hasn’t been a reason to. The little crime there is is hastily stamped out by the police and the Army. It’s not like the time after Elektra died, after Fisk was first put away, when he heard the cries and ignored them in the hope that he could put away Daredevil for once and all. Now, there are just no cries._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! I'm still writing this fic! Sorry this is a shortish update; they may continue to be slow for the next couple of weeks; I've got the next chunk written but want to get a little further ahead of myself still if I can. Your comments and kudos warm my heart, thank you!

“It’s strange, how quickly you get used to new stuff,” says one of Matt’s clients, one day, sitting down on the other side of the kitchen table. “Like, I don’t find it weird anymore that we’re queuing for milk and bread at the grocery store. And I’ve got to know the names of the soldiers who patrol our block.”

Matt, fingers skimming over the client’s file, nods. “People are adaptable,” he says.

People are adaptable, but his fingers and fists still itch for action. It has been two months now since he put on the mask and went out on to the streets – and in truth, there hasn’t been a reason to. The little crime there is is hastily stamped out by the police and the Army. It’s not like the time after Elektra died, after Fisk was first put away, when he heard the cries and ignored them in the hope that he could put away Daredevil for once and all. Now, there are just no cries.

Instead, he buries himself in work, just like Foggy once tried to get him to do. He’s in court a couple of times a week, in conferences another two or three, and the rest of the time is spent seeing clients and filing what needs to be filed on their behalf. He wins a number of cases, loses a couple more.

Marci sends him a second intern, and when he suggests he buys her a drink as a thank-you, accepts.

“You know both of them have come back raving about you?” Marci says, once they’re ensconced in a Josie’s booth with questionable alcohol in front of them. “Say that what you’re doing is what law should be.”

“They’re good kids,” says Matt, but he can’t repress a smile.

There is a moment’s silence, and then Marci says, “oh, I nodded.”

“Foggy used to do that,” Matt muses, aloud. “Shrug, or something, and tell me about it.”

“Do you mind?” she asks.

“N-no.” Matt finds he doesn’t. “I have to focus to pick up a nod, and, you know …” he runs a finger down the condensation on the outside of his glass, “I miss Fogs, but it’s nice to be reminded of him, now. I don’t have much in the way of physical things to remember him with.”

“I look at photos,” Marci says. “I guess you’d need, like, a recording or something.”

“A recording of his heartbeat,” Matt confesses. “That’s what I miss most. Not his voice, or his cologne, or that shampoo he used, but his heart.”

Marci drinks, and eventually says, “okay, I move we pick a different topic.”

They talk about their work. Marci relays some tales of her boss, and it turns out the wealthy people bringing their cases to Chao & Benowitz have much the same problems as Matt’s less well-off clients. The issues under dispute are just bigger and more valuable, and the impact on the clients usually substantially less.

When they leave it is arm in arm. Matt is just drunk enough that he prefers the support, and Marci is just drunk enough that she is a little unsteady on her designer heels. He sees her into a cab and starts to head home.

His senses are a little on the fuzzy side, and he is concentrating on the route more than anything else. He is about halfway there when he’s startled by a heavy footstep behind him and a hand on his arm; automatically he swivels, bringing the cane up in a defensive sweep.

“Hey, hey.” It’s a deep voice, accustomed to command. “Sir, please lower your stick.”

Matt does so, but keeps his grip firm on the handle.

“Sir, I’m Corporal Sanchez of the US Army. It’s kind of late to be out alone. Do you know where you are?”

Biting down the urge to punch the man, or return a sarcastic comment, Matt says, “three blocks from my apartment. West 51st and 10th. I grew up round here, Corporal. Don’t easily get lost.”

“All the same,” says Sanchez, still tightly polite, “I hope you won’t take it bad if I walk with you there.”

Matt clenches his left fist tight enough that he can feel his fingernails digging into his palm. “Sure,” he says, equally polite. “Appreciate the concern.”

He lowers the cane, and moves off again, the soldier falling into step beside him.

“Been out drinking, sir?” Sanchez asks, as they cross the next street.

“Catching up with a friend,” Matt says briefly. “Still allowed, right?”

“Of course,” says the soldier, and now there is a touch of irritation in his voice. Matt smiles to himself to hear it.

“Seems that things are pretty quiet round here,” he says. “Hope you gentlemen aren’t missing action somewhere else.”

“No sir,” says Sanchez. “Keeping Manhattan safe from criminals and vigilantes, it’s an honour.”

“Seen many vigilantes lately?” Matt queries, lightly, feeling in his pocket for his door keys.

“Not a one,” admits the corporal. “Some of us were kind of looking forward to tangling with that Daredevil. He’s got quite the reputation.”

Matt covers his smirk by bending his head to focus on opening the door to his building. “Thanks for the company,” he says, stepping inside. “And for keeping the city safe.” He lets the door bang close in Sanchez’s face and heads upstairs.

He is itching to go out, but he has enough awareness to know he’s drunk too much to make it safe. Still, he gets out his mask from the trunk and twists it between his hands for a while until he finally puts it away and collapses into bed.

Matt holds out the next night too – there is a deposition he needs to finish listening to – but the following evening, after a pretty uneventful day, he is back in front of the trunk. Really, the decision is already made, and he hesitates only a short while before lacing up his boots, strapping up his hands and putting on the mask. It feels familiar against his face – feels good – and he grins to himself before letting himself out of the roof exit.

He spends the first hour alternating between listening to the city, the unique sound of life drifting up from the streets below; and testing his rusty reflexes on the rooftops. Early on he slips once, slightly, on a landing and jars his knee, but a few minutes of rest and massage are enough to resolve the ache and he’s off again.

Matt hones in on the soldiers quickly. They’re patrolling in pairs or groups of three, criss-crossing along streets and up avenues, and have the Kitchen fairly well covered. But there are alleys they’re not going down, and there’s a drug deal going on in one of them.

It’s just a couple of teenagers, and Matt is swift and efficient rather than brutal in giving the dealer a bloody nose and the buyer a scare. They get a good enough look at him, he thinks, that the word will soon be out that Daredevil is back on the streets. He goes back to the rooftops and listens; sure enough, it is on the police radios within 15 minutes, but, interestingly, not on the Army’s.

He stays out just long enough to break up a fight going on outside a bar before heading home. His fists are a touch bruised, but otherwise, he’s unharmed.

The adrenaline rush from the night lasts well after he’s got back, and even though he tries meditating, he sleeps poorly and wakes early.

“Jesus, Murdock, you look like shit,” is Brett’s comment, when the detective bumps into Matt getting coffee, from the shop around the corner from his apartment.

Matt pushes his glasses up his nose and grimaces. “Thanks.”

“Up late?” asks Mahoney, and Matt can hear the knowing grin in his voice. “To be honest, Matt,” Mahoney continues, “I’m surprised it took you this long. Just be careful.”

He doesn’t go out every night, but he starts going out regularly again, keeping tabs on his city. The soldiers are looking out for him, he knows, but Matt takes a certain joy in avoiding them and keeping the crime rate down at the same time. He finds it is possible to be Daredevil and the lawyer; he has the occasional drink with Marci, dinner with Danny Rand, more coffees with Mahoney. He goes to Mass on Sundays, filling as many waking moments as he can with activity. It’s a new sort of normal, in which everyone – Matt included – is pretending that things are fine, that half the world’s population haven’t vanished and that it’s possible to just go about your life.


	6. Year 1 (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Fall is ending and winter coming on with a chill in the air when Matt’s phone rings one morning, informing him that_ Mahoney, Mahoney, Mahoney _is on the other end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse any dodgy legal-ese in this chapter. For various Real Life reasons I know a fair bit about UK corporate law, but very little about US civil/criminal law, so am handwaving that and making it up as I go along. Because fanfic. 
> 
> Also, if you're ever in New York, I highly recommend visiting the Intrepid Museum. It's really very good.

The weeks pass. He wins some cases. He loses a couple. He breaks a rib in one fight, gets mild concussion in another. There are a couple of very near escapes when the Army nearly catch up with him, but he gets away clean.

Fall is ending and winter coming on with a chill in the air when Matt’s phone rings one morning, informing him that _Mahoney, Mahoney, Mahoney_ is on the other end.

“Brett?”

“Sending a client to you,” the detective says, without introduction. “It’ll have to be pro bono, Murdock, the guy can’t pay.”

Matt sighs down the phone. “Brett, I’ve got too many pro bono cases on as it is. Not sure I can afford another.”

“Listen to what he has to say, and then tell me you won’t take it,” Mahoney says, ominously. “Please? He’s on his way to your apartment.”

“Mahoney …” Matt finds his voice dropping into his threatening Daredevil growl, and forces himself to lighten it. “Seriously?”

“Just listen to him,” Mahoney says, and hangs up.

Matt swears into the empty apartment and goes to clean up in preparation for his unexpected client.

It’s a young man, who’s walking with a slight limp as he heads up the stairs. Cheap cologne and hair gel and sweat, and a nervous hitch in his breathing and pulse. Matt puts on his glasses and goes to answer the door.

“Matthew Murdock,” he says, sticking his hand out. There is a pause and the other takes it, his hand clammy. Close up, Matt can add copper to the other odours, and hear the grate of a fracture in the guy’s left humerus. He holds open the door. “Come in. Coffee?”

“Yeah.”

Matt makes coffee, takes it to the kitchen table and sits down. “Mind if I tape this?” he says, gesturing at his eyes to make the point.

“N-no.”

“Didn’t get your name,” Matt says, turning on his voice recorder. “Let’s start there.”

The client’s name, it appears, is David Caetano. He tells Matt he’s twenty, that he’s got a job with his uncle learning to be an electrician. His girlfriend was Snapped and work has been slow, and he’s been partaking in a little petty theft from stores – candy, soda, and so on.

“But only a coupla times,” Caetano adds, and his heart tells Matt he’s telling the truth.

The night before he’d slipped a Hershey’s bar in his pocket while paying for a can of soda, and that would have been fine, had an off-duty sergeant from the battalion watching Hell’s Kitchen not seen him.

“So he tells me to pay for the candy, or leave it,” Caetano says. “I take the candy out, say I’m sorry to the storeowner, sorry to the sergeant. Think that’s it. But when I come out of the store, he’s there waiting with three of his mates and they just lay into me.”

Matt starts listening harder. Every word is truth. Caetano describes being beaten bloody, kicked in the knee – that explains the limp – and hit in the shoulder with a length of steel pipe. “You wouldn’t know, I guess, but I’m a mess,” he says. “Got a black eye, busted nose, got this sling I have to wear for six weeks. And all ‘cos I took one candy bar.”

“Would you recognise the soldiers, if you saw them again?” Matt asks.

“Yes sir,” Caetano says.

“Describe them,” says Matt, and Caetano does a decent job at describing his assailants, at least good enough for a sighted person to identify them.

Matt clicks off the recorder. “Good.”

“What can you do?” the kid asks, with hope ringing through his voice.

“Take them to court for assault,” Matt says.

“I ain’t the first,” Caetano tells him. “Heard of other guys, had the same done to them. Those soldiers think they can rule the streets and nobody’s able to take them down.”

“I can try,” says Matt, and he doesn’t mean just in a court of law. This, he thinks, is why Mahoney sent the boy to him.

He takes down address, phone number and email, warns Caetano that he should lay quiet for a few days until the case was filed, and sees him out.

After texting Mahoney, Matt settles down to work, typing up the allegations, reading them back, correcting typos, tightening up the language, and finally, satisfied, saving the document. It is too late to file the case now, so he closes down his computer and changes.

On the rooftops, he listens for different things. Not the sound of petty crime, but the sound of bullies behaving badly. Tonight, there is nothing, but he does overhear two soldiers discussing the assault on Caetano (“Davis says the kid was pretty badly beat up” – “Ah, but scum like that, they deserve it, right?”) and he gets close enough that he could find them again. It’s a start.

A week after filing, he receives a call inviting him to a settlement conference. It’s from a lawyer attached to the military, and the conference is due to be held on board the _Intrepid_.

On the appointed day, Matt meets Caetano outside the ship. She is surrounded by metal barriers and security gates, a far cry from her pre-Snap days as a museum. Caetano sounds nervous when he greets Matt, and Matt, who is feeling a little on the nervous side himself, has to work to make himself sound calm and unflustered.

“Just let me do the talking,” he says. “I won’t make decisions without consulting with you. Let me discuss the case and make the arguments for you. They’ll probably talk at me and look at you, but try and ignore that. We hold all the cards here.”

“Okay.”

Matt takes his cane in his right hand and holds out his left. “If you’ll let me take your elbow, and then just head for the main entrance?”

They make it through security and are escorted up to the officers’ deck, where there are conference rooms. The ship smells of paint and steel and diesel and everything is a little too echoey, but the conference room has better soundproofing and the echoes are less. Matt folds his cane and puts it on the table next to his thick wodge of Braille files, and hands Caetano a slimmer file.

“Just in case,” he says, “as you can’t read my copy.”

The military counsel is female, and from what Matt can judge, around his own age. He had been preparing to be confrontational from the start, but he gets a flutter of attraction from her, and interest as he introduces himself and his client.

“You’re the guy who put Wilson Fisk in jail,” she says, as they all sit. “You and …”

“My partner, Foggy Nelson,” Matt agrees. “Unfortunately, because of the Snap … well. I practise solo now.”

“My sympathies,” she says. “So.”

She is professional, and good at her job, and Matt finds he is pretty much enjoying the verbal sparring as they go through Caetano’s allegations and the Army response to them. They bat points of law back and forth. Matt tells her Caetano won’t settle under any circumstances, and has to lay a warning hand on his client’s arm as he senses the objection the kid is about to raise.

When they take a break, Caetano says, “I’ll settle if they offer enough.”

“I know that,” says Matt. “But tell them and we’ve got no leverage. Trust me.”

It’s clear there is little the Army can really offer in defence. Caetano’s evidence – and injuries – are good enough, and his descriptions are good enough, that in the end they get a settlement offer of a decent sum of cash and an apology from the soldiers concerned. The four are wheeled into the room, make a show of denying and a sharp reprimand from the lawyer, and mumble out a grudging apology.

Matt hides his satisfaction. He has what he needs too, now.

The Army lawyer gives Matt her card as they leave, and Caetano, already in buoyant mood after their success, is more than happy to assure her he’ll make sure the number goes into his lawyer’s phone.

“Spend the money wisely,” Matt cautions, as he says goodbye to a thankful client. “Not all at once. And the cops out there aren’t all like Detective Mahoney, so stay away from stealing things.”

He listens to Caetano walk away, and turns for his own apartment.

Settling to work for the rest of the day is difficult, and he gives up around 6pm, packing his gym bag and heading over to Fogwell’s to warm up on the bag before night falls properly. He goes dressed in a baggy hoodie and baseball cap, so he can leave his things at the gym and go straight on from there.

The four soldiers who had beat up Caetano had distinctive-enough features that Matt is sure he can pick them up again. One of them had an asthmatic wheeze in his lungs; another intense, unpleasant body odour.

He starts close to the _Intrepid_ , and sits on the rooftop opposite for an hour, monitoring comings and goings, but doesn’t find his targets.

Instead, he tracks a group of off-duty soldiers to a bar, and after deciding they’re settled in for the long haul, goes off to patrol further around the Kitchen. Someone is trying to steal a motorbike, but runs when Matt drops down into the alleyway. He grimaces in the would-be thief’s direction, and goes back to the bar.

The soldiers in the bar get drunk, and rowdy, but they leave and go straight back to base. Matt checks his watch; it’s time he was heading back to base too.

Watching the _Intrepid_ finally reaps dividends three nights later, when the sergeant who had been the ringleader in the assault on Caetano heads out, bypasses the usual army hangout, and goes deeper into the Kitchen. Matt takes a deep breath, focuses on the man’s presence, and follows.

The sergeant gets pizza from a hole-in-the-wall diner, and heads on to a sports bar. Others join him. Matt sits on the ledge of the building opposite and waits, patient.

It is past midnight when they leave. Matt has got up a few times, stretched, done some shadow boxing, and listened to the sounds of the city at night, but he is quick to follow – pacing along the edge of his current building, taking the short leap over to the next. The sergeant and his companions head north on 9th Avenue; Matt tracks them, slipping down fire escapes and across the cross-streets to stay level.

He’s about four blocks into the chase when the taunts start up from the group of soldiers. Pausing, Matt listens, and determines there is a couple walking the street arm-in-arm, and the soldiers have decided to object. The taunts quickly turn into thumps and Matt moves.

It takes only seconds to descend to street level and come up alongside the two men who have suddenly become the targets of the group of military. One is already doubled over on the ground, while the other is doing his best to defend himself against three soldiers who are taking it in turns to hit.

Matt does not hold back. He hauls one of the soldiers off their victim and sends him flying with a roundhouse kick; following through with another kick, he delivers a satisfying crunch to the knee of a second.

The man trying to defend himself staggers away and goes to his partner, calling 911 as he does so. Matt keeps going, breaking a nose and winding his third target with an uppercut followed by an elbow into the man’s throat. Now only the sergeant is left on his feet.

Matt dances back, fists up, daring the other man to attack and finding his lips curling into a grin that is half a snarl as he does so.

“So you’ve finally come out of the shadows,” the sergeant says, boots moving on the asphalt. “Just to attack the folk keeping this place safe from criminals.”

“By beating up people doing no harm,” Matt snaps back. “There’s no place for bullies in my city.”

The taunt does what he hopes, and the sergeant throws an angry punch which Matt feels coming from a mile away. It’s easy to dodge. His opponent is heavy and his breathing sounds like thunder in Matt’s ears; really, there’s no contest. He moves into well-known sequences of moves, keeping his feet shifting. The sergeant lands a blow or two but Matt doesn’t feel them.

The sound of the sergeant’s body hitting the sidewalk comes far too early and he finishes up with a few punches to the face before standing, letting his breathing steady, and reaching out to see what had become of the couple whose evening had been so rudely interrupted. They’re still there, huddled against a wall, and the sirens are approaching fast.

“Ask for Detective Brett Mahoney,” Matt says. “Tell him what you saw. Tell him what they did.” He jerks his head at the unconscious bodies on the ground, and as the police cars and ambulance screech to a halt at the scene, gets out of there.

The knock on his apartment door, some two hours later, comes as a surprise. He’s showered, put away the mask, boots and black clothes, and is finishing off a takeout order of Thai while listening to music. The knock is followed by another, and Matt turns off the music, picks up his shades and goes to the door, registering that it is Mahoney on the other side even as he opens it.

“Goddammit, Murdock,” says the detective, coming in without waiting for an invitation, “what the hell happened back there?”

Matt closes the door. “A lesson.”

“You got a good settlement for that kid,” Mahoney says, pacing the room, “a good deal, and an apology.”

“And they went straight back out there,” Matt returns. “Those guys, tonight, they’d done no wrong.”

“Sergeant Hawkins is in Metro-General in a coma,” says Mahoney. “They’re calling his family. He might not wake up. It’s crossing a line, Matt. You crossed it, and you brought me into it. I sent the kid to you because I knew you’d be able to fight his case, but not like this.”

Matt feels his jaw clench. “You know who I am. You sent this to my door. You knew what I’d do. Don’t act like it’s a surprise.” He takes off his shades. “Their bullying had to stop, and the 15th sure wasn’t going to stop it.”

Mahoney lets out an angry sigh. “Yeah, but now I’ve got the military police on my back about Daredevil and four soldiers in hospital. I can only protect you so far, Murdock.”

“I can protect myself,” Matt points out.

“See that you do,” Mahoney says. “And, you know, I wish I’d never encouraged you. Stick to the law, counsellor. You’re more use to me, more use to Hell’s Kitchen, helping folk that way.” His breathing sounds like he’s about to add something, but instead he mutters, “what the hell,” and leaves.


	7. Year 1 (part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Six months have passed now since the Snap, and it is almost as though life has returned to normal except for the increasing restrictions on groceries and the fact that the streets remain quiet – way too quiet, to Matt’s ears._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a nice long chapter. I expect the timeline to contract somewhat now, I'm not going to write seven chapters for every year of the five, because this would never ever be finished and I'd like to finish it.

Sergeant Hawkins does not die. He wakes, several weeks later, with a chunk of time missing from his memory, and gets a medical discharge from the military. Mahoney texts Matt a terse message with the news.

Matt goes to Mass that weekend, and talks to his mother, and the next day goes back to the church. He hangs around until the priest comes out of the confessional booth.

“Father O’Malley,” he says.

“Matthew.” The priest sounds resigned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you earlier. I can fit you in, if you want to confess.”

Fiddling with the cane in his hand, Matt says, “I’d rather talk face-to-face, if you don’t mind, Father.”

They go into the vestiary and O’Malley starts taking off his heavy robes. “So,” he says, “how can I help?”

Matt finds a seat. “I used to talk a lot to Father Lantom,” he begins. “In confession, and away from it. It … it helped.”

“I won’t pretend to have his wisdom,” says the priest, “but I can listen, and I promise to treat our conversations as under the seal of confession. Will that do?”

Matt nods. “Yeah. Thank you, Father.” He hesitates, listens to the priest’s rock-steady heartbeat, and goes for it. “There’s something you need to know.”

They talk for a long time. O’Malley’s questions are sensitive and insightful, and Matt finds himself responding without having really meant to, or at least not to the extent he does. There is no judgment in the priest’s voice, and Matt marvels at it even as together they work through the events of the night he sought out the soldiers.

“If you’re looking for a penance,” O’Malley says, eventually, “I’m not sure I can give you one which would make you feel better. Have you …”

“I haven’t been out since then,” Matt cuts in, knowing what he’s asking. He rubs his knuckles, which are scarred but smooth right now.

“Do you want to?” asks O’Malley.

“Yeah,” Matt admits. “Putting on the mask is the only time I’m true to myself. The rest of the time –” he gestures at his glasses and cane, “I’m just pretending. There was a time when I tried to be only Matt Murdock, and another when I was only Daredevil, but I know now I need to be both the lawyer and the mask. I can’t separate them.”

O’Malley stands up. “Then, Matthew, I suggest you be that man. Save the folk who need saving, and just watch how hard you hit. And I’m here, if you need someone to talk to.” Matt holds out his hand and the priest takes it. “Good luck, and God bless you,” he says.

He takes O’Malley’s advice, and keeps working, and keeps going out in the mask. Six months have passed now since the Snap, and it is almost as though life has returned to normal except for the increasing restrictions on groceries and the fact that the streets remain quiet – way too quiet, to Matt’s ears. But his practice is going well enough to rent a small office. He manages to get a good rate on it as it is too cramped for most businesses, and looks out over a building site. It’s good enough for Matt and his clients and there’s space for a little extra desk for the occasional interns Marci sends over.

Matt connects with his friends, too. He meets up with Danny Rand to spar and eat Chinese; he goes to Harlem to listen to music in Luke Cage’s club. Marci joins him at Josie’s once a month; they talk shop and miss Foggy together.

Mostly, he manages to avoid the patrolling soldiers, and in any case after the Caetano and Hawkins affairs they are generally keeping their heads down and doing their jobs. Once or twice Matt steps in to break up a fight between soldiers and civilians, but he pulls his punches and lets them walk away cowed and frightened, but unbroken.

And then, one day, and without warning, the military ‘protection’ over Manhattan is lifted. The government issues a statement saying they’re satisfied that civilian unrest has settled down, and the soldiers vanish.

Mahoney – who remains cool towards Matt, but not unfriendly – grumbles that the move just means more work for the NYPD. In actual fact, crime rates remain steady.

It is about a month later and Matt is out on one of his regular sweeps of the city when he notices that he is being followed. He is being followed with skill, by two people who know what they’re doing, at least when it comes to following a normal person. They are keeping well back from him, staying quiet, and, he thinks, out of any sightlines.

He pauses to take stock of his location, noting the gush of hot air from a vent, the vibration of the subway two blocks east under his feet, the smell of spices from the nearby Jamaican restaurant. There’s a fire escape nearby, so Matt launches himself up it as his pursuers come close. He hears them following – nimbly enough, but with the occasional clank of iron as they climb.

On the rooftop, he turns to wait for them. There’s no easy exit from this building, he knows, but confronting potentially dangerous foes on the street is not an option. And if he can’t escape, neither can they.

The two whip out pistols as they come over the top of the parapet, and spread out. Matt turns his head from one to another, listening so he can identify them again later. One woman, leather jacket, expensive shampoo and hair dye, no other identifiable beauty products. One man, plenty of muscle, old-fashioned deodorant and a touch of hair wax, clean soap, clean denim jeans. Both of them with their hands rock-steady on their guns.

“Hands up,” says the woman, voice accent-less and used to command.

Matt puts his hands in the air. “You cops? You don’t look like cops.”

The man comes close to him and quickly frisks him, removing the billy clubs and tossing them across the roof. Matt listens to where they fall and commits the location to memory. “Clean,” says the man, to his companion.

“Oh come on,” the woman says, lowering her gun but not holstering it. “You mean to say you don’t recognise him?”

Matt focuses harder, but he hasn’t heard enough from the man to recognise the voice and he’s sure they’ve never met.

“He’s Steve Rogers. Sometimes known as Captain America,” the woman says. “I’m Natasha Romanoff.”

Slowly, Matt lowers his hands, but keeps them visible. He’s pretty sure that neither of his two stalkers would hesitate to shoot, and with his clubs on the other side of the roof, disarming them at a distance would be tricky.

“I’d say it’s an honour, but with you being responsible for half the world vanishing,” Matt says, “I’m not sure that’s true. And doesn’t explain what you’re doing stalking me in my city.”

Romanoff holsters her gun, with a clunk of metal and leather, and after a pause, Rogers does the same. “Look, I get that it’s out of the blue,” Romanoff says, “but you got to know it’s for the right reasons. We lost people too. Everyone lost people.”

“And now we’re trying to do the right thing by those we lost,” puts in Rogers, his heartbeat hammering rock-steady in Matt’s ears. “Starting by reaching out to anyone who can help us in the world we’re in now. People with the skills we need.”

“I’m no hero,” Matt argues. “I’m just a guy looking out for his city.”

Romanoff snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, right. I’ve seen the videos. You’re no more a regular guy than Steve here.” Her voice softens, and Matt hears the leather in her jacket shift as her shoulders relax. “Honestly, we’re not asking you to do anything different from what you do already. Just … check in with us, if something unusual comes up.”

“You want to keep tabs on me,” Matt says, and the lawyer in him thinks about privacy issues. “And if I refuse?” There is silence from the two Avengers. “You’ll do it anyway.”

“It’s in everyone’s interests,” Romanoff counters. “You, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, you’re the guys who can actually get stuff done here in New York.”

Matt grunts. In a way, she has a point, but he’s not prepared to concede ground if he doesn’t have to.

“What do I get out of it?” he asks.

“Like Natasha said,” Rogers says, “you can come to us if you need help. With an issue, or just if you need, say, equipment. Didn’t you have a suit?”

“Grew out of it,” returns Matt. “Where’s yours, Captain?”

“Bit conspicuous for a clandestine meeting,” Rogers replies. “Point taken. But we could help with some form of body armour. Medical facilities. We’re closing down Avengers Tower, but we’ll have a place upstate and transport in an emergency. All we need is a way of contacting you, and a way for you to contact us.” He hesitates, and there is a minute blip in his pulse which Matt only notices because he is focused. “And it would be good to know your name.”

Matt lets them wait while he thinks about the proposal. They move closer together, away from him, and start talking in tones that would be inaudible to anyone else. Matt turns away, head down, pretending he is still thinking, and listens.

“You can’t force the guy,” Rogers says.

“Can’t I?” Romanoff sounds at once angry, annoyed and mildly threatening. “Where’s his sense of duty?”

“I think his duty is to the city,” says Rogers, mildly. “Not to us. Nat, we messed up with Thanos, and the world knows it.”

“And now we’re trying to put things right,” Romanoff snaps. “Steve, we need him, and the rest of them. We don’t have time to spend days trying to persuade them.”

Matt comes to a decision. “You don’t have to persuade me,” he says, and throws them his burner phone. Rogers catches it, the plastic connecting against skin. “Put your numbers in there,” Matt continues. “As for my identity, I’ll consider that request.”

Romanoff’s breathing had hitched when he’d interrupted their conversation, but it’s back under control now. As Rogers tosses the phone back, numbers inputted, she adjusts her gun in its holster.

“Thanks,” she says, and it sounds genuine.

“I’ll text you my number,” Matt says. “Also, word of advice: don’t sneak up on Danny or Luke. Let them know you’re coming.”

“So noted,” Rogers acknowledges.

After the Avengers have left, Matt scoops up his billy clubs and returns to patrol, thoughtful. He does text them when he’s back at his apartment, sending both the ‘Steve’ and ‘Nat’ entries in his phone a simple ‘DD’. Then he texts Danny and Luke longer messages, which take time on the burner, but this isn’t the sort of thing he wants to send from his usual phone, so he perseveres.

The next morning Marci calls about a case Matt has been helping her on, and inspiration hits him.

“Marci, do you have time for a drink this week?” he asks her, after they’ve planned their next moves.

“Sure. Tomorrow?” she suggests.

“Eight at Josie’s,” Matt says.

The next evening they sit close to each other in a booth, and Matt leans across the table and tells her, in a low voice, about the encounter with the Avengers. Marci sucks in a deep breath and is clearly trying to avoid exclaiming aloud, and Matt raises his eyebrows in her general direction.

“All right, don’t give me that look,” she says. “But seriously, the fact is you met Captain _America_ and you couldn’t even appreciate it.”

“I appreciated him not shooting me,” Matt observes. “I mean, I’ve heard of the guy – who hasn’t – but I didn’t think you were a fan.”

“I’m not a fan,” Marci says, archly. “I am someone who appreciates a good butt and that man has a good butt.” She picks up her glass. “In fact there are actual quizzes online comparing Captain America’s ass to Daredevil’s.”

Now it’s Matt’s turn to choke on his drink. “I’m sorry, _what_?” he says.

“Those suits leave very little to the imagination, Murdock,” Marci tells him, with a smile in her voice. “But that’s besides the point. What did they want?”

She listens as he completes the tale.

“You going to tell them who you are?” she asks.

“I’m considering it,” Matt admits. “I suspect if I don’t, they’ll work it out, eventually. Track Danny’s phone or something. I … I just feel like too many people know already, now.”

Marci is silent, and then says, “that was me shrugging. Who knows? Me, Mahoney, your mom, Cage and Rand, Claire Temple …”

“My priest,” adds Matt, “but he’s bound by the seal of confession.”

“It’s not so many,” Marci points out.

“What do you think I should do?” asks Matt.

Marci drinks, and puts her glass down again decisively. “I think you should probably tell them. But make it on your terms.”

Over the next few days Matt thinks further, and does his research. There’s a lot on the internet about Steve Rogers; rather less, though enough, on Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow. What Matt reads is enough to tell him that neither are to be underestimated, and he decides that Marci is right – revealing his identity to the Avengers is the smart move, before they find out.

He texts Romanoff that evening, inviting her and Rogers to a meeting at his office address in two days’ time.

They arrive promptly on the day in question. As they come up the stairs, Matt can hear them discussing whether the lawyer’s office they are coming to is a front, an attorney for Daredevil, or something else. He grins to himself, and puts on his shades.

He opens the door as they reach it, before they can knock, and stands back to let them in.

“I hope we’re in the right place,” Rogers says, very slightly hesitant.

“You’re in the right place,” Matt returns. “Have a seat. I’d offer you coffee, except I haven’t yet got around to getting a decent machine.”

He sits down himself, and listens as they both sit on the other side of the desk. He can almost hear both of them scanning the room for danger, and both of them clocking his cane on a filing cabinet in the corner.

Romanoff is the first to break the tension.

“You’re a lawyer?” she asks.

“Matthew Murdock,” Matt introduces himself.

She leans forwards. “So let me get this right. Are you representing the vigilante known as Daredevil, or …”

“I _am_ Daredevil,” Matt says. “I am also an attorney. And, before you ask, yes, I am also blind.”

Romanoff picks up the hole punch on her side of the desk, and lobs it accurately at Matt’s face. He has heard it coming as it leaves her hand, and picks it neatly out of the air.

“Blind?” she says, sceptically.

Matt explains, as simply as he knows how.

“But super-senses don’t teach you to fight like that,” Romanoff points out, when he’s done.

“I had training,” says Matt, not wishing to get into the whole Stick thing just now.

“You box,” Rogers says, and it’s not a question.

“If we’re getting into a discussion about the relative merits of punching bags,” Romanoff says, “I’m leaving. You guys can bond over boxing later.”

Matt’s not sure he particularly wants to bond with Captain America, but he shrugs. “So here I am,” he says, instead. “And here you are. And now we can have an honest conversation: what do you want from me?”

“There’s strength in numbers,” Rogers says. “Our numbers are down. As we said the other day, we can use you, and the others here in New York.”

“What about the Sokovia Accords?” asks Matt. “I’ve got an understanding with the NYPD, and the city authorities haven’t brought Sokovia into the equation so far, but the Avengers are somewhat higher profile. If Luke, and Danny and I, are known to be helping you, we’re risking the attention of the feds.” He feels the tension in the room mount almost immediately, and hears both his visitors fidget in their seats. “Sore point?”

Rogers grunts an affirmation. “I’m not going to argue with a lawyer about law,” he says, “but we’ve been given to believe that the Accords are unlikely to be invoked right now. I never signed them, and I’m not planning to.”

“I signed, but like Steve says, we’ve been told they’re not going to be a problem,” Romanoff adds. “Now Thanos is dead …”

“Thanos is dead?” Matt interrupts. There has been little information about the creature behind the Snap, only speculation on the news, and it’s not something he’s paid much attention to in any case.

“Thor cut his head off.” Romanoff’s voice is bleak. “Wasn’t planned. We wanted to try and reverse the Snap, but …” her voice tails off.

“But there could be other threats,” Rogers says, “and we need to be prepared to neutralise those threats. We’re not asking you to change your MO, Mr Murdock, just to agree to support us, if needed. In return, we can support you, if needed.”

“I’d prefer you to stay out of Hell’s Kitchen,” Matt says. “It’s under control. It’s under my control. These are my terms, Captain Rogers, Miss Romanoff. If I agree to support you, you agree to stay out of the city.”

He can tell they’re looking at each other, trying to decide whether to accept the terms. “If you want to discuss it, discuss it,” Matt adds. “You’d need to walk three blocks at least before you’d be out of my hearing range.”

He does do them the favour of getting up and going to fetch himself some water, and purposely does not focus on the whispered conversation they have, but regardless, he knows he’s won when he goes back into his office.

“Done, with one extra favour,” says Romanoff. “We’ve … struggled, with Cage and Rand. Rand’s office is blocking us, and Cage has been out both times we’ve gone to his club. Will you ask them to meet with us?”

“I may have warned them you wanted to,” Matt admits. “Yeah, I’ll get in touch.”

Matt extends a hand, and they both get up and shake. Rogers’ handshake is firm, Romanoff’s cool and brief.

“Thank you,” Rogers says.

They decline Matt’s offer to show them out, and Matt listens as they make their way down the stairs. Neither says anything until they’re three blocks away, and Matt smiles to himself as he hears Rogers, finally, ask Romanoff if she thinks they’re clear of his range. She tells him to wait another block, and their footsteps finally fade out of hearing.

Matt picks up his phone and calls Danny.

“You should meet with them,” he says, once they’ve exchanged greetings. “Set your terms. Have a lawyer with you, if you want.” A brainwave hits. “In fact, call Marci Stahl – Chao & Benowitz are still your lawyers, right?”

“Right,” Danny says.

“So call Marci Stahl,” says Matt, “and take her along. She’s sharp.”

He doesn’t add that Marci would be thrilled to meet Captain America. Danny sounds like he’s considering the idea. “Get Luke along to the same meeting,” Matt suggests. “Strength in numbers. Let me know how it goes.”

A week later he has texts from Danny and Luke, both saying they’d managed to arrange mutually satisfactory access to the Avengers’ facilities, while preserving their own independence. Marci calls him, her voice full of barely-suppressed satisfaction in a job well done.

After the flurry of activity surrounding the contact from the Avengers, Matt hears no more from them, and he’s able to continue his daily – and nightly – life as ever.

All too soon, there is talk on the commemoration of the Snap, an anniversary nobody wants to celebrate. There is to be a grand unveiling of the memorials to the victims of New York in Central Park, and much discussion in the newspapers over whether this is an appropriate way of remembering them. (The _Bugle_ thinks it is not, but the _Bulletin_ is in support).

Anna Nelson gets in touch and asks Matt if he would come with her and her husband to the ceremony, and Matt agrees. They pick him up on the day, and Matt slips into the role of blind man, letting Anna guide him as they make their way up to Central Park. There are a lot of people around and he focuses on her scent and her voice to keep himself centred amid the hubbub.

Like the vigil a month after the Snap, the ceremony features speeches by the mayor, by a priest and a rabbi and an imam and other leaders. There is another two-minute silence, although just like before, to Matt it is hardly a silence. He listens to other people’s hearts, hears the sobs, and tries to remember what Foggy and Karen’s hearts sounded like – but those memories are starting to slip away.

At the end of the ceremony the memorial is unveiled: many huge granite slabs, engraved with the names of those lost. The Nelsons and Matt join the long line to see them, and Anna exclaims at the lists.

“There are so many names,” Anna murmurs, as they wait. “They say there are similar memorials in every city.”

In front of the slab bearing Foggy’s name, she takes his hand and guides it to the letters in the stone, and he traces them with his fingers. FRANKLIN P. NELSON, they say – evidence that Foggy existed, and evidence that he’s gone. Underneath, Matt’s fingers find THEODORE R. NELSON. On the other side of the memorial they find KAREN PAGE, and Matt runs his fingers over her name too.

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until Anna gently pushes a packet of tissues into his hand and leads him away from the memorials. They find a bench, and she holds him warm and tight and lets him cry on her shoulder. Her own tears are running into his suit, and Edward Nelson rests his hands on both their shoulders, just to let them know he’s there. His hand feels heavy and comforting to Matt.

“Franklin would have been proud of you,” Anna says, eventually, disentangling herself and taking Matt’s crumpled tissues from his hand to throw in the nearby trash can. “How you’ve got the firm up and running again.”

“I miss him,” Matt admits. “Every day. He was my first real friend. Maybe my only real friend.” He takes a deep breath. “Do you think it’ll get easier?”

Anna hugs him again. “Easy? No. Easier? Maybe. You just have to remember, Matthew, you’re not alone.”

He nods. All around him there is the noise of grief – tears, and the rustle of plastic and paper as people grasp for tissues to wipe their eyes and blow their noses. But the sense of _togetherness_ is almost tangible too. These are the living, gathered as a group to remember the missing, and there is something powerful in that.

Matt stands up, and Anna tucks his arm in hers. “Now, let’s go and get some food,” she suggests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I envisage the NYC memorial to be pretty much the same as the one in San Francisco we see in Endgame. Mainly because I got momentarily confused in my head and forgot that Scott Lang lived in SF and not NY, but also they worked for the scene.


	8. Year 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The first Matt hears of the campaign to unmask Daredevil is over breakfast. It’s early summer, and some 15 months have passed since the Snap._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for a slow update. I got distracted by binge-watching Lucifer. And this chapter didn't want to write itself, and it turns out not much happens in Year 2 of the Snap, apart from a lot of people talking about stuff. Next year/chapter I'll try and get a bit more action in there.
> 
> Continued kudos and comments are utterly lovely, thanks to anyone who's read/commented/enjoyed.

The first Matt hears of the campaign to unmask Daredevil is over breakfast. It’s early summer, and some 15 months have passed since the Snap. He’s had occasional texts on his burner from Natasha Romanoff checking in on him, and he’s had the occasional rough night when someone has decided to fight back, but generally life has been routine. Matt can barely remember the last time he had a broken bone or dislocated shoulder. Foggy, he thinks sometimes – ruefully – would have been proud of him.

He is in his favourite coffee shop, which he likes for the way they manage not to burn the coffee and for the decent croissants. He is idly eavesdropping on the general background noise and the other customers, letting his senses wander. There is a couple a few tables away, the man with a newspaper. Its pages rustle as he turns them, and then there’s an exclamation of surprise. The newspaper reader’s companion leans in to read, and whistles low.

“Can they even do that?” she asks.

“I guess it’s their money they’re putting up,” the other says. “But seriously, a hundred grand?”

“Guess they know the only way to get someone to give up Daredevil is to offer a massive bribe,” the woman muses. “Even so, I don’t see many in this part of town would even bother.”

“Some might,” the man says.

Matt feels a chill run down his spine. The savour taken off his meal, he finishes it quickly and heads to his office.

The Google search takes little time, and lands him on the opinion page of the _Daily Bugle_ , where a piece which is long on invective and short on fact calls upon the people of New York to reveal the identity of Daredevil.

“The city’s other surviving vigilantes,” Matt reads, his fingers skimming over the Braille reader, “are already well known to us. Harlem’s so-called Hero, Luke Cage, now runs a legitimate business. Billionaire Daniel Rand’s philanthropy is married well with his occasional outings in the guise of the Iron Fist and he has never denied his powers.

“But the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen remains masked, and his brutality remains undimmed.”

Matt pauses the reader, reaches for a glass of water and drinks, swallowing down with the liquid a sudden desire to hit something.

“Although some of Daredevil’s victims have later been found guilty of crimes, does that excuse the vigilante’s methods?” the opinion piece asks. “We think not. The _Bugle_ is today offering a reward of $100,000 to any reader who can provide reliable evidence of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen true identity, and bring him to justice for the many assaults he has committed. His methods are not needed in today’s world.”

He takes his fingers off the reader, stands up, and paces the room a few times before slamming his hands against the wall. It hurts – not much, but enough to take the edge of his anger.

The ringing of his phone breaks him out of the moment. It is an unknown number, and Matt takes a couple of deep breaths before answering.

“Matthew Murdock,” he says.

“It’s Danny,” says Danny Rand, on the other end.

“New number?” asks Matt.

“New phone,” Danny says. “I forgot mine. I was out, and saw the _Bugle_.”

“Where are you?” Matt says. “Calling … it’s maybe not the best idea.”

“Central Park,” says Danny, cheerfully. “It’s pretty quiet. Look, can I help?”

Matt sits down, and rubs his forehead. “Danny, I’m not sure this is something you can throw money at. Or punch.”

“What if you need a lawyer?” Danny says.

“I hope it doesn’t get to that point. And I’d ask Marci,” Matt points out. “The only thing I need you to do, Danny, is not to say anything about me. To anyone. Until it dies down, I’m better off staying away from you and Luke – people will be watching you.”

He can almost hear Danny pouting at the other end of the phone. “Look, I’m touched you called,” he adds. “But please? And … and delete the call history, destroy the sim card on that phone, or something. It’ll be fine.”

Danny acknowledges this, and they end the call.

Client meetings take his mind off the problem for the rest of the morning, and he goes out at lunchtime to get air and worry. At the deli, as he waits for a sandwich and keeps worrying, Brett Mahoney comes up by his elbow, and Matt doesn’t even realise until the detective touches his arm.

He starts, and Mahoney says, “Just me, Murdock. You okay?”

“Great,” Matt lies.

Mahoney returns a doubtful “hmm” but waits until they’re both outside to elaborate. “Take it you saw the papers,” he says, voice pitched low.

“Yeah.” Matt picks at the end of his sandwich.

“It’s a lot of cash,” Mahoney observes. “Some folk would do a lot for a hundred grand. Thing I can’t work out is where the _Bugle_ has got the money from – ain’t no newspaper in the world with that much cash to splash about these days.”

It’s a good point. Matt files it away in his head for further thought.

“What do you suggest?” he asks Mahoney. “Lay low?”

Mahoney, chewing on a bite of his own sandwich, considers the question. Matt puts his lunch aside – the bread is dry and the mayo too vinegary, and he has little appetite.

“Thing is,” Mahoney says, finishing his mouthful, and talking as softly as he probably can, “you do that, you risk the _Bugle_ calling you a coward, or something like it. You’ve got, what, half a dozen of us who really know? So anyone else would have to find out. They won’t pay out without proof.” He takes another bite of sandwich.

Matt listens to him chew, and waits for what’s next.

“I reckon,” says Mahoney, eventually, “you need to be as blind as you can during the day.” Matt raises an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, none of that,” Mahoney continues. “Bump into things. You need plausible reasons to be bruised. Ask for help.”

“I don’t need help,” Matt snaps out. “Even without …” he gestures, vaguely, “even without everything, most people with a disability can manage perfectly well without help. You just need to adapt. I’ve adapted.”

Sighing, Mahoney balls the sandwich paper up and lobs it accurately into a nearby trashcan.

“I know, Murdock. But way I see it, you have a choice. Either you spend a few weeks pretending to need help, or you get unmasked, you get disbarred, you get prosecuted, and me and half your friends come with you.” He stands up. “Do it for us, if not yourself.”

He leaves. Matt sits, fuming silently to himself, for a while before standing up and retrieving his discarded sandwich. He is about to send it in the same direction as Mahoney’s trash, but stops himself, and instead makes a show of feeling his way to the trashcan and carefully feeding the sandwich into it.

By the time he’s back at the office he’s calmed down a little, and has realised that Mahoney has a point, and the concept of playing up his blindness is actually a good one.

But it’s difficult. He spends the next few days deliberately walking into things, forcing himself to ask people for help crossing the road or for groceries. He avoids playing up too much in places where he’s known – that would be too obvious – but he does make an effort.

In the evenings, he makes up for it. He’s careful, staying away from crowded places and intervening only in serious incidents, but in between fights he lets his senses go. He runs and leaps between rooftops, perches on the edges of 10-storey buildings and listens to the life boiling below, sits above restaurants and breathes in the smell and noise from the kitchens.

The _Bugle_ opinion piece is still prominent on the front page of its website three days later, but judging by the absence of calls or any follow-ups Matt is beginning to be hopeful that the crisis will blow over. Nevertheless, when he hears footsteps up to his office accompanied by the smell of blueberry muffins he slips on his glasses and prepares to fumble his way through whatever conversation he is about to have.

When he opens the door he’s surprised to find that his visitor is Bess Mahoney, bearing a plastic tub of baking.

“Thought you could do with feeding up,” she says, without preamble.

Matt stands back and holds the door open for her, and suggests she sits. He takes the tub and opens it and is almost overwhelmed by the sweet smell of the muffins – blueberries, vanilla, sugar, baked for a minute too long but still seeming pretty appetising. He makes a show of sniffing them and prodding one with a fingertip.

“Thanks, Mrs Mahoney, they seem really good,” he offers. “Why …?”

“Do I need an excuse to bake for the Kitchen’s best lawyer?” she asks.

“Can I help you in some way?” Matt returns.                                                                      

“If I wanted to hire you, I’d pay you,” Bess says firmly. “I ain’t one of those people who won’t pay for good work. Just came to say I think what the _Bugle_ ’s trying to do is wrong, and most folk agree with me.”

Matt is stunned silent. He listens to Bess’s heartbeat – she has a touch of arrhythmia, but nothing unusual in someone her age. Otherwise, it’s normal.

“I’m … I’m not sure what you mean,” he lies.

Bess reaches across the table and touches his arm. “I’ve known you’re Daredevil since the day of the Snap, Matthew,” she says, and he now remembers her reaction when he’d turned up on her doorstep in black. “Didn’t tell a soul then, won’t tell a soul now.” She leans back. “I don’t quite rightly understand how you do it, but I know your heart’s in the right place.”

He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “I – well, I don’t really know what …”

“You don’t have to say anything, honey,” Bess says. “Everyone knows we’re better off with the Devil watching over us. Most people don’t care who’s behind the mask.” She pushes her chair backwards, but doesn’t get up. “You want to know why else I know you’re a good man, Matthew?”

He doesn’t say anything, but waits for her to continue.

“Because of Foggy Nelson,” she says. “He and my Brett were holy terrors together growing up, but they were never mean or malicious. Pains in my ass, sure, but never mean. Foggy Nelson could never have been friends with anyone other than a good man, because he was one himself.”

“He … he was the best,” Matt manages. He pulls himself together. “Thanks, Mrs Mahoney. It … it means a lot. Really. But you must not say anything. Not to anyone.”

“Not a word. Now eat your muffins, and bring the tub back some time, you hear me?”

She leaves. Matt picks a muffin out of the tub, and tries it; as he had thought, the vanilla is artificial and the blueberries were frozen. But it’s good and he finishes it, thoughtfully.

Five days on and the _Bugle_ finally shifts the opinion piece down the front page of the website. The same day, Matt’s email pings and there’s a link from Mahoney, taking him to the _Daily Bulletin_. The piece is by the editor, and Matt remembers Karen talking about Ellison, back when she was being a journalist.

He puts in his earbud and listens.

It’s an astonishing piece. Without resorting to insult, Ellison neatly puts down the _Bugle_ ’s arguments and instead argues the case for vigilantism. He doesn’t name Daredevil, but he wraps up the history of Hell’s Kitchen and the state of affairs left by the Snap into a neat package, concluding that sometimes the authorities are not enough and that citizens can do more good than harm by taking situations into their own hands.

“If you have someone watching over you,” the screen reader ends, “then do them a favour and keep an eye on them in return.”

Matt pulls out the earbud, feeling strangely, profoundly grateful to Mitchell Ellison. Grateful enough that his first stop that evening is the _Bulletin_ ’s offices. He listens to the activity inside, establishes which voice belongs to the editor, and then tracks the man as he leaves the building an hour or so later.

Ellison evidently travels by subway, because he leaves the building and turns away towards the station. Matt drops from his perch on the opposite side of the street, and after checking there’s nobody else around, falls into step alongside the journalist.

Ellison’s stride breaks, and then he stops walking. “Jesus,” he says. “Some warning?”

Matt draws him into the shadow of a building. “Mr Ellison, right?” he says, Daredevil-low. “Just came to thank you.”

Ellison seems lost for words. “Right,” he says, eventually. “Well, I guess it’s good to know someone’s reading our rag these days.”

“I – it’s just good to know there’s someone supporting what I do,” Matt returns, hesitant and trying not to sound like it. “It’s appreciated.”

“Yeah.” Ellison sounds like he’s fiddling with a pair of glasses. “Look, I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Karen Page. She believed in you enough that she wouldn’t give you up, even after people died. She was a good kid. I figured she knew what she was talking about.”

It’s a sucker punch to the gut. Matt swallows down half of what he wants to say. “I’m trying,” is what he manages. “I’m trying to live up to that. I’m trying to live up to her belief.”

Ellison grunts. “Do that. For what it’s worth, what the _Bugle_ ’s trying to do – it’s not right. So.” There is a very slight movement of air, and Matt guesses Ellison is waving his hand in a non-committal sort of gesture. “Keep going.”

“Thanks,” says Matt.

 “Welcome,” says Ellison.

For a fortnight or so Matt thinks that the _Bugle_ ’s article has been forgotten. He checks their website regularly, but sees nothing more. Out on the streets he hears the odd tidbit which, he thinks, could be useful to the _Bulletin_ , and he starts texting Ellison tips from his burner phone.

The burner buzzes in his pocket one afternoon halfway through a client meeting; he disregards it and keeps going, but pulls it out as soon as the client has gone. It’s from Natasha Romanoff, and says simply “Call me”.

He calls her. Romanoff is blunt and straight to the point; apparently there are a new crop of Daredevil videos on Reddit, and the anonymous user posting them is encouraging others to start trying to identify him.

“I figured you wouldn’t have seen them,” Romanoff says.

“Well,” Matt says. “No.”

“So here’s what I can do,” Romanoff continues, and outlines a plan to delete the new videos as they appear, and try and track down the person responsible, if possible.

“If you can do that,” says Matt, “I guess it would help. Th – thanks.”

She keeps him updated. When he’s out he tries to tell if anyone’s filming, but phones make no noise and it’s impossible – one of the few things his senses are useless for. So Romanoff deletes the videos, and chases the uploader through cyberspace for him.

After a month it seems safe to start seeing Danny and Luke again, quietly, and after two his life has returned to normal. Romanoff is still keeping an eye out for videos; Bess Mahoney has taken to dropping round with baking once every few weeks, tutting over any bruises he’s carrying; and the _Bulletin_ is still writing the occasional article backing up what he does.

He stays careful – makes sure he carries his cane, asks for help now and then. The threat might have blown over, but Matt’s pretty sure someone out there would still sell him out if it benefitted them. Yet somehow, he’s stopped worrying about it. If it happens, he knows he has friends to help out and back him up, and the comfort of that knowledge somehow outweighs any lingering fear he has about being unmasked.

It’s an odd sort of epiphany, but Marci laughs at him when he tells her about it.

“You always had friends that would back you up,” she points out, grimacing at Josie’s vodka. “Even when they were mad at you for, I dunno, lying to them for years.”

Matt grimaces himself, at the memory. “Thanks for bringing that up,” he says. “No, what I mean is, I’ve learned to trust more people in the last … well, since the Snap. You. Brett. Father O’Malley. I feel … more at one, with myself.”

He pauses for a drink.

“The horrible thing is, I feel more comfortable with myself, since it happened,” he continues, and it’s good to articulate his feelings. “Yet I’d much rather go back to before.”

“Most people would prefer to go back to before,” Marci says, bluntly. “You’re not alone, Matt. In that, or in anything else.” She reaches out, and squeezes his hand. “Speaking of alone, do you need an intern this month? Got a really keen one you could borrow.”

He squeezes back, and they fall to discussing work.


	9. Year 3 (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Matt is tired. More crime meant more work both day and night, and he has been having too little sleep. Marci had told him off for it, and Mahoney, just that morning, had said, “Murdock, you look like shit”._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er, hello. Yes, this thing is still being written. Real Life has meant that I've had little time or energy for writing recently, and it's been plodding on glacially even though I think I know where I want it to go. Being a good 2000+ words into Year 3, I have taken the decision to split the chapter/year and give you a cliffhanger ending to this one, although I can't promise a swift resolution! 
> 
> Continued thanks for kudos and comments, they are really very much appreciated.

“Defence rests, your Honour.” Matt nods at the jury and taps his way back to his seat. The trial has gone as well as could be hoped; his client, a young man accused of assault, is definitely guilty of some minor misdemeanours, and Matt’s just hoping he can get him off the big charge. He knows the accusation is false, but nobody has been able to find the attacker who left an elderly woman with a broken hip and elbow and severe trauma.

There have been too many cases like this lately. Rising unemployment caused by the Snap and businesses going bust has left too many people scrabbling for what they can find, or what they can take. It feels like the post-Snap truce burst just after the two-year commemoration, when the politicians stopped being tactful and started being politicians again. An ugly presidential election had been and gone, but the jobs kept vanishing and crime started rising again.

Matt is tired. More crime meant more work both day and night, and he has been having too little sleep. Marci had told him off for it, and Mahoney, just that morning, had said, “Murdock, you look like shit”.

He’d smiled at the detective, straightened his tie and gone into battle in the courtroom nonetheless, but waiting for the jury to come back he felt like he could easily put his head down on the table in the side-room he was in and fall asleep on it.

Instead, he busies himself with paperwork until the court clerk sticks his head round the door. “Mr Murdock? The jury’s ready.”

Back in the courtroom Matt listens as the jury comes back in. Some of them sound nervous, some calm – it’s about par for the course, on a case like this. His client sounds more nervous next to him, and Matt leans over and reassures him.

“Have you reached a verdict?” the judge asks the jury foreman, who stands up.

“Yes, your Honour?”

“And that verdict is?”

“Not guilty, your Honour,” says the jury foreman.

Beside Matt, his client lets out a long, relieved sigh and a kind of sob. Matt touches his arm. “Told you it would be okay,” he says.

When they’re finally let out Matt’s client can’t stop thanking him.

“It’s what I do,” says Matt, shaking the man’s hand for what feels like the hundredth time. “Just don’t waste your freedom, okay?”

His client agrees, and eventually goes. Matt, cane in one hand and briefcase in the other, starts to head out of the courtroom, but there’s someone standing in his way. He lets the cane bump into their foot, eliciting a stammered apology. Matt smiles in a friendly way at them.

“Can I help?” he says, when the other person – male, young, too much hair gel – doesn’t say anything.

“Matthew Murdock?” the young man asks. “I’m a reporter. At the _Daily Bugle_.”

Matt find his muscles tensing, but he does his best to remain outwardly calm. “And how can I help you?” he asks, smooth lawyer, not Daredevil.

“We’re doing a piece on the increased crime rates,” the reporter says, “and you seem to be defending a lot of the accused.”

“I’m a defence attorney,” Matt points out. “Kind of the point.”

“Well,” says the reporter, ploughing on although Matt can hear the way he’s becoming gradually more agitated at the way the conversation is going, “maybe you’d share some thoughts on why there’s more crime these days. And how to deal with it.”

“Right now?” asks Matt. “I’ve just finished a case, and I’ve got a ton of paperwork.” He waves his briefcase in the reporter’s general direction, not caring if in the process he accidentally-on-purpose whacks the journalist in the face.

The young man shifts on his feet. “Erm, well, I was asked to …” He tails off. “Tomorrow?” he adds, hopefully.

Matt thinks about it. The reporter is young enough that the assignment’s probably been thrown on his desk, and he’d had his own fair share of unpleasant jobs as an intern. He sighs, and digs in a pocket for a business card.

“Ten tomorrow morning,” he says, holding it out. “Don’t be late; I have a client meeting at eleven.”

The reporter takes the card eagerly. “Thanks,” he says. “Thanks, Mr Murdock. See you tomorrow.”

In the evening Matt wonders about asking Ellison for advice on how to deal with a journalist, but then he remembers that he only knows Ellison as Daredevil. Winging it appears to be the only option.

The reporter is bang on time, and Matt offers him a glass of water and settles behind his desk, glad that under the scrutiny of a stranger his face is bruise-free and his hands generally unscraped. “So,” he says, “what do you want to ask?”

Pulling something out of his bag, the journalist puts it down on the desk between them. “Do you mind if I record this?” he says.

“If it means you’ll report me accurately, no,” Matt agrees, and listens as a button is pressed. The voice recorder is digital and silent as the reporter turns pages in his notebook.

“Yeah,” he says, after a moment. “Would you say there’s been an increase in crime rates in Hell’s Kitchen recently?”

“I don’t have the figures,” says Matt, “but yeah. I think most people would say so.”

“Why?” asks the reporter.

“People need to make a living,” Matt says, “and there isn’t enough work. It’s too easy to start dealing drugs or getting into petty theft to try and have enough money to buy dinner. I’m not condoning crime, but if it’s a choice between your kid eating and your kid not eating, what way do you think most people will go?”

“There’s a lot of violent crime too, though,” says the reporter. “Is it justifiable to assault someone because you’re out of work?”

Matt smiles at the young man in what he hopes is a friendly way. “Of course not,” he says. “Attacking someone more vulnerable than yourself is not right, and the hospitals are stretched enough as it is without taking on victims of muggings too.”

The reporter makes some notes, his biro scratching on paper. “But you’ve defended people accused of assault, as well as theft and other crimes?” he asks.

“And they’ve been acquitted,” Matt responds, coolly, adjusting his glasses and leaning back in his chair. “Everyone deserves a fair trial.”

“Ah, so what are your views on vigilantes?” asks the reporter. “Didn’t you once represent the Punisher?”

Matt has sensed the question coming, and he takes a moment to consider his answer. “Frank Castle was a man who had been through extreme trauma,” he says, addressing that part of it first. “He was acting out of passion and anger. He deserved some punishment, but he needed help.”

“So what about Hell’s Kitchen’s own vigilante?” the journalist presses. “What about Daredevil?”

“As I understand it,” Matt says, carefully, “Daredevil focuses on those committing crimes, the ones the police can’t catch, and I believe his intervention has often helped bring them to justice.”

“Have you ever come across him?” the reporter asks, and there’s genuine curiosity in his voice.

“Not first-hand,” Matt lies. “My former colleague, Karen Page, did.” It’s a matter of record, and there’s no point prevaricating about it – he’s pretty sure most of the city read Karen’s columns in the _Bulletin_. “I’m lucky not to have needed his help. Even the most unscrupulous criminals will seldom stoop to mugging a blind man.” He offers the reporter one of the smiles Foggy had once told him sent girls into a puddle of mush, and it has some effect on the young man, who coughs and makes some more notes.

“In that case, Mr Murdock,” the reporter says, “what do you think the city should do to address these rising crime levels?”

On safer ground now, Matt is happier with the topic. He’s talked about this often enough with Marci, and Brett, and Danny; the Rand Foundation is doing what it can but even Danny’s vast wealth is not enough to solve New York’s myriad crises. So it’s easy to be persuasive on the need for more support for schools, for ways to keep the young and unemployed busy, somehow, and for state and federal help for families struggling to feed themselves. The reporter listens, and asks the occasional question, and scribbles, his biro rasping against the coarse paper, and finally clicks the pen shut.

“Thank you,” he says, genuine. “I hadn’t thought of things in quite that way. It’s … it’s going to help the article a lot.”

Matt checks his watch. It’s 10.50, and his client is due soon. The reporter notices, and gathers his things together, turning off the recorder and slipping it into his bag.

“Did – did your colleague, Karen Page, did she ever say who she thought Daredevil was?” he asks.

Matt has a sudden clear flashback to standing in their old office with a brown paper bag, smelling Karen’s shampoo and his own nervous sweat and hearing her heartrate pick up as he unveiled the mask. “She never did,” he says.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” the reporter says, and then adds quickly, “don’t tell my editor I said that. He’s got this thing … doesn’t like vigilantes at all. Even though we sold tons of copies any time we ever ran a picture of Spider-Man, back before the Snap. Well. Thank you, again, Mr Murdock.”

“Let me know when the piece runs,” says Matt. “I’d like to read it.”

“Sure. I’ll drop you an email or something,” the reporter says.

The email pings into Matt’s inbox a couple of weeks later. When he’s done sending a few client emails, he tells his virtual assistant to click on the link, and slips in an earbud to listen to the story.

He has to admit, the reporter’s done a fair job – there is, inevitably, a touch of the sensational about the language used, but Matt himself is quoted accurately and the piece is astonishingly balanced, given the newspaper it’s in. Naturally, as it’s the _Bugle_ , there’s a few quotes from outraged citizens complaining they’ve been mugged, but that’s about the sum of it.

Matt fires back a quick email thanking the reporter, even as a flurry of other emails arrive. There’s one from Luke, saying he thought Matt had made some good points; one from Anna Nelson, telling him she’s proud; another from Marci, saying simply “Killed it, Murdock”.

He gets texts, later, on his burner, from Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers, saying much the same sort of thing.

Business picks up, after the article. Barely a day goes by without someone calling from the police station asking if he can represent them; he has to start turning some away. Marci tells him he should find a partner, but despite the choice of several of the former interns, Matt is still not ready for a partner again. If he has a partner, he’ll have to start pretending he’s just a blind man who’s a good lawyer. He’d have to start lying to another good person, and, he tells himself as he regretfully passes on another client, he’s not ready for that. Not yet. Instead, he finds another couple of small firms like his who he trusts enough to pass instructions on to.

The legal work leaves little enough time for patrolling, although crime levels do not drop. Matt makes it out a few times a week at best, and he survives on not enough sleep, too much coffee, and takeout.

It is on one of these nights, following a day in court and a snatched meal, that the inevitable happens. Matt has been following a particular gang for some time – they have been using scooters, roaring around the streets of the Kitchen, leaping off and snatching bags from the vulnerable, and roaring off again – and he’s got close to them on several occasions. But he’s never been fast enough to either recover the stolen property or stop them from making a getaway, despite his best efforts.

After some consideration he’s put a switchblade into one of his pockets this evening, and as soon as he hears the growl of the scooter engines he starts tracking them. He misses the first stop, but is on the rooftop above the second, able to drop down to street level and slash the tires of two of the machines before the robbers are heading back to them.

They drop the bags they’ve taken from the terrified girls nearby and turn their ire on Matt. He bares his teeth and they come at him, both at once, so he drops the switchblade and prepares to fight.

It’s all going his way, with one man on the ground and the other faltering under Matt’s blows when there’s the sudden noise of an engine from his left. He tries to dodge the oncoming scooter, but it slams into him sideways and knocks him, hard, to the ground, his head glancing off the sidewalk. For a moment he lies there, head ringing and senses fogged, and that’s a moment too long; the next thing he feels is the sharp bite of his own switchblade digging deep into his abdomen. Through the blur of his headache he hears the scooters roar off, and then everything turns off.


	10. Year 3 (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Waking is slow, and painful, and quiet. The world is dark and muffled, and it takes Matt several moments to catch his breath and work out where he is. He’s at home, in his own bed, silk sheets soft under his skin; there’s a mass of bandaging around his abdomen and torso and he fumbles at it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the immortal words of Granny Weatherwax, I aten't dead. Although a month is admittedly way too long to update. I plead Real Life, and work, and stuff, and a period where this was going nowhere fast. 
> 
> Year 3, it turns out, has a lot going on in it, and is not yet over. 
> 
> I hope it's enjoyable enough to make up a little for the slowest update yet.

Waking is slow, and painful, and quiet. The world is dark and muffled, and it takes Matt several moments to catch his breath and work out where he is. He’s at home, in his own bed, silk sheets soft under his skin; there’s a mass of bandaging around his abdomen and torso and he fumbles at it.

A hand comes out and stops him, and a voice speaks, but he can’t hear what’s being said. It’s all just noise. He waves at the person, desperately, and whoever it is pats the back of his hand and then just sits there and holds it.

Matt goes back to sleep.

When he wakes again it is to the sound of someone sleeping in the chair by his bed. The air is thick with the iron tang of his own blood, and antiseptic, and lingering beneath it all, Chinese takeout. He takes a deep breath in and relishes the ability to _see_ once more.

But everything still hurts. He lies still and focuses inwards, diagnosing his injuries and remembering what happened. He’s got severe bruising all along his side, concussion, possibly a fractured rib, and then there’s the knife wound in his stomach. Matt can’t tell how bad the last is, although he suspects that, given the fact he’s at home and not in hospital, it can’t be too bad. As he shifts the wound twinges and he makes a noise which wakes the person next to him.

“Lie still!” she says, and he realises with a wave of pleasure and amazement it’s Claire. “Seriously, Murdock,” Claire adds, “I thought my days of looking after you were over.”

“Aren’t you in Harlem?” Matt asks, his voice raspy in his own ears.

“I’m still the first contact on your burner,” Claire says, but she doesn’t sound too upset. “You’ve got a bunch of good friends, Matt, you know that?”

“What happened?” he asks.

Claire gets out of the chair and helps him sit up before fetching him a glass of water and telling him what happened.

The girls who had been the victims of the robbery had called 911 when Matt had gone down, and as it happened, Brett Mahoney was listening in on police radio at the time and managed to get there before the ambulance. “He knew you wouldn’t want the hospital,” Claire explains, “and he managed to persuade the EMTs to patch you up enough to get you into his car. He called me and brought you home.”

“Thank you,” Matt says.

Claire takes the glass and puts it on the bedside table. “Well, you’ve gone far too long without a major injury. I knew it would happen some time. But you’re pretty banged up, even for you, and you must stay in bed for at least a couple of days.”

Matt starts to protest. He’s got clients to look after, a court hearing the day after next, but Claire is firm.

“I’ve already called Marci Stahl,” she says. “She’ll help you out the next few days. You just need to set up an out-of-office on your email to say you’ve come down with the flu, or something. Please don’t try and struggle on without actually resting, Matt. Even without the injuries, you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” says Matt. He’s never known Claire to be anything other than honest, and her matter-of-fact approach has always been one of the things he’s liked most about her. “It’s been … busy.”

Claire settles down in the chair again. “You don’t need to stay,” Matt tells her.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Murdock,” she returns. “You had concussion, and you’ve probably already slept too much. I’m not leaving you for a few hours yet.”

“Then talk to me,” Matt says. “Tell me about what you’ve been doing. We haven’t – well, I haven’t been in touch enough. What’s going on up in Harlem?”

She talks, and he listens to her voice, eyes closed. Claire tells him of her patients, of their troubles, of the way the Harlem community has come together in the wake of the Snap, of the guy she’s been seeing, “boringly normal”, she admits, with a soft smile in her tone.

When she runs out of things to talk about she orders him to stay in bed and goes to the kitchen to get food – a simple soup and a bread roll, which he eats slowly. If he’s honest with himself, it hurts to sit up in bed, and he’s glad when he’s finished and can lie down again.

Claire puts on some music and sits with him for a while longer, until there’s a knock on the door and the familiar smell of incense and pot drifts in: Danny. Claire bends down and kisses Matt on the forehead. “Stay in bed,” she says, again, and heads out after giving Danny strict instructions to make sure Matt obeys.

 Danny throws himself down in the vacated chair, and Matt resigns himself to having more company than he’d like over the next couple of days.

Danny stays until the evening, when Marci rocks up with Thai takeout and briskly deals with work stuff before leaving Matt to blessed peace. Exhausted, he falls asleep.

In the morning Mahoney is his first visitor, bearing coffee, and Matt gets the chance to thank the detective for his actions the previous night.

“Well,” Mahoney says, “I figured that right now, we need Daredevil. And Matt Murdock. Was worth the lieutenant giving me hell over it.”

“It’s appreciated,” Matt says, “genuinely. Apart from the mask, I don’t do well in hospitals.”

“Yeah, your friend Claire said as much,” agrees Mahoney. “I like her.”

“She’s good people,” Matt confirms.

“You and her …?” Mahoney lets the question tail off.

Matt shrugs, and sips coffee. “Once, I hoped. But I … I fucked it up. I have a tendency.”

Mahoney is silent for a moment, and then he stands up. “Not everything, Matt,” he says. “Get better soon, okay? Kitchen needs you out there.”

He is left alone for much of the day, although Claire calls, and Danny texts. Despite promising he wouldn’t, he checks his work emails a couple of times and even replies to one or two.

By the evening Matt is fed up of being in bed, and after paying a visit to the bathroom he picks up a blanket and makes his way carefully to the sofa instead. He’s there when Marci arrives – tonight with pizza.

“You’re looking better,” she observes, handing him a plate without much ceremony. It’s pepperoni, and Matt knows the grease will cling to his tongue and palate. He also knows that it’s probably not worth the grief he’ll get if he doesn’t eat anything, so he obediently takes a bite of the slice and chews it. Greasy.

He swallows, and shrugs. “I feel a bit better,” he says.

“Good.” Marci eats some of her own pizza, shuffling papers with the other hand. “Right. So I managed to get the hearing on the De Luca case delayed until next week. Filed your written submissions for those two fraud cases you’ve got on. Called all your clients you had meetings scheduled with this week and postponed them.”

Matt takes another bite of pizza, the cheese hot and sticky.

“Marci, you’re incredible,” he says, when he’s finished the mouthful.

“Yeah, well.” She shuffles papers again. “What are friends for, etcetera? If you’re going to get yourself beaten up saving a couple of girls’ purses, someone should help you out.”

“Yeah, but …” he gestures, helplessly, “still. Thanks.”

Marci lets out a kind of exasperated sigh, gets up, and comes to sit next to him on the sofa, propping his legs over hers as she does so, so he can still stay stretched out. She puts her plate on top of his legs, and they eat pizza in a companionable silence. When she’s done, Marci leans over to put the plate on the coffee table, and then rests her arms on top of Matt’s legs instead.

He wants to fidget, to push her away, but at the same time it feels … nice … to have someone close by. Her warmth seeps into his bones and her vanilla and coconut scent, overlaid slightly by the smell of pizza, pervades his nostrils.

Her fingers play idly with the fabric of his sweatpants. There’s something in her breathing, in the way she’s not saying anything, that makes Matt think perhaps Marci wants to say something. About whatever it is they’ve built together, over the last two and a half years. He thinks about saying something himself, and then she breaks the moment, swinging his legs out of the way so he can stand up.

“Time for injured devils to be getting back to bed, and for tired lawyers to be getting home for their beauty sleep,” Marci says, briskly.

“I’m sure you don’t need beauty sleep,” Matt says, smiling at her.

Marci pauses in clearing plates and the pizza box, and says, “you shouldn’t look at a girl like that. It’s criminal.”

Matt laughs at her, and painfully stands up.

“Need a hand?” Marci asks, genuinely solicitous.

“I’m fine.” He waves at her. “Really. Just … give me time.”

He makes it to the bathroom, and then to his bed, but he’s exhausted again from the effort and he’s asleep before Marci’s left the apartment.

Over the next week he gets back to work – the day job, at least, and then the night job too. He’s careful at first, but only for a couple of nights, and then it’s back to business as usual. He tries to get more sleep, but there’s so much to do, and within a fortnight Marci is sighing at him when she sees him.

“So much for you looking after yourself,” she mutters.

“I’m fine,” Matt counters, and when he says it, he does mean it, even though he’s running on four hours’ sleep and three coffees before noon.

Marci switches topic to the case she’s handing back to Matt, and he hopes she’s dropped the issue of his health. He gets through the day, grabs an hour’s sleep, and is out on patrol before he realises she hasn’t.

He’s monitoring one of the Kitchen’s more aggressive drug dealers when he hears the soft tread of footsteps behind him. A moment’s more attention tells him who’s joined him on the roof, and he stands up and turns around.

“Captain Rogers.”

“Steve, I told you before.” Captain America sounds apologetic.

“What are you doing here?” Matt asks. He keeps half an ear on the drug deal going on below them, and he’s not particularly in the mood for small talk.

“I … was passing, and thought I’d check in,” says Rogers, after a moment, his heart skipping out the music of a lie.

Matt shakes his head. “No, you weren’t, and no, you didn’t.”

Rogers sighs. “Your friend Miss Stahl got in touch. She’s worried about you, Murdock. I think she said something about the rest of your friends having tried and failed to get through to you, so she’s moving on to me.”

“I’m fine,” Matt says, repeating his words to Marci. On the street, the drug deal concludes; the addict leaves with his crack and the dealer turns the other way. Matt could have intervened, but he knows it would have been largely pointless.

“I can’t tell if you’re lying,” Rogers says, with frustration in his voice. “Not with the mask on.”

“Then you’ll just have to trust me,” says Matt. A scream rends the air, and he twists to focus on it. Three blocks east, woman in her twenties. “And this will have to wait,” he throws over his shoulder, as he takes off towards the scream. Behind him Rogers grunts in annoyance, and follows.

The woman is being mugged by two young men and as Matt deals with one he hears the thudding of Rogers’ fists handling the other. It does not take the two of them long to incapacitate both muggers, and as Matt finds the woman’s card and phone and cash in a pocket, Rogers is comforting her. She is thanking him in return in a voice of disbelief.

“You’re … I mean … _thank_ you,” she says. “You’re helping Daredevil?”

Rogers shifts on his feet. “I guess I am.”

Matt comes over and the girl’s already racing pulse changes tune, from nervous to scared. He holds out her things.

“Here.”

She takes them with another gasp of thanks.

“I’ll see you into a taxi,” Rogers says. “Um, M- Daredevil, where shall I meet you?”

“I’ll find you,” Matt returns, shortly. “Glad you’re okay, miss. Captain America will see you safe.” He reaches for the rung of the fire escape over his head and swings up it as Rogers leads the woman towards the street, whistling for a cab.

After she’s gone, Matt tracks Rogers an easy block, and manages to startle him by dropping into the street behind him. Rogers’ hastily muffled exclamation gives Matt a certain grim satisfaction.

“I could have handled that,” Matt tells him, as they make their way through the back alleys.

“I’m sure you could, but you didn’t need to handle it alone,” Rogers says. “That’s why I’m here. Folk are concerned you’re trying to do too much.”

“And now it’ll be all over social media that Captain America’s working with Daredevil,” Matt points out. “They like you. They’re scared of him – me.”

“So I may be good for your profile,” Rogers suggests.

“I may be bad for yours,” Matt returns.

Rogers stops walking and turns to face Matt; Matt waits for whatever he has to say. “I didn’t come for Daredevil, I came for Matt Murdock,” he says. “I’ve started a couple of groups, just for people who need to talk.”

“I don’t need to talk. I need to act,” says Matt. He takes a deep breath in. “I’m sorry. I appreciate the concern, but …”

“Wednesday nights, 7pm, St Columba’s in Chelsea,” Rogers interrupts. “Just think about it.” He claps Matt on the bicep in a friendly sort of way. “I’ll leave you to your night,” he adds, and heads off.

Matt is right about the social media. He gets home to find a message from Danny with a link to a tweet from the woman they’d saved; when he checks again in the morning the tweet has had thousands of likes and retweets and far too many comments for him to listen to them all. Although Daredevil has always attracted a certain amount of attention online, this is rather more than Matt wants, and he wastes a fair amount of time sitting worrying about it before realising there is literally nothing he can do about it.

On Wednesday morning he comes to a decision. Perhaps if he attends Rogers’ group, Captain America will stay away from Hell’s Kitchen. He texts Rogers to tell him he’ll be there, but adds, “please act as though we’re strangers. Too much attention this week”. Rogers texts back a thumbs-up.

He gets the subway down to Chelsea; it’s a short enough trip that the discomfort of sitting in a metal tube bottled with all the smells and sounds of its occupants is relatively minor. St Columba’s draws him in by its familiar scent of incense and wood, and he can tell where the meeting is merely by following the distinctive thump of Rogers’ heartbeat.

Before going in he adjusts his glasses and his grip on his cane and assumes his best inoffensive blind lawyer demeanour. There are a few others already there, mostly sitting in silence. Rogers sees him and reacts in the way that only Matt can see, but his tone is perfectly neutral yet welcoming as he guides Matt to a seat.

Rogers is a good host. He is warm, empathetic, and a good listener. He teases stories out of the attendees, grips their shoulders in a comforting way when the emotion threatens to get the most of them, and makes it seem as though they’re the only person in the room. The atmosphere becomes more comforting, yet Matt still wishes he hadn’t come. Rogers is yet to call on him to say anything, and Matt spends the time alternating between focusing on whoever is talking, listening to the buzzing of the electric lights, and directing his attention to the street outside.

“Mr Murdock,” Rogers says eventually, breaking into Matt’s idle eavesdropping of a conversation between two men on the street. “Tell us who you’re missing.”

“It’s been nearly three years …” Matt says, stalling. “I mean …” He hesitates. “My partner,” he says, giving into Rogers’ silence. “My law partner. He was my best friend. He never treated me as …” he waves a hand at his eyes. “He cared about people.”

“He sounds like a good man,” says Rogers, gently. “I guess you miss him.”

Matt feels the cane twist between his fingers. “Every day. And yet …” he shrugs, and he’s not sure why he’s actually talking about this in a room full of strangers. “And yet, I’ve moved on. I’m making a life without him in it.”

“And that hurts, perhaps more,” Rogers says.

There is an assenting murmur from the rest of the group. “I’ve found a new girlfriend,” says one, “and it feels like betrayal.”

“But don’t we think they’d have wanted us to go on with life?” Rogers suggests. “To look after ourselves? Maybe even be happy again?”

That gets an assenting murmur too.

“Thank you, Mr Murdock,” Rogers says, his voice gentle. “Miss … Flatley, was it?”

Matt manages to stick out the rest of the meeting, and hangs back as the others leave. It’s either that or storm out not looking at all like a blind man.

“I’m glad you came,” says Rogers, stacking chairs. Matt props his cane in a corner and helps. “What you said - it was important.”

“It’s not like it will make me feel any less angry, or guilty, about the whole affair,” Matt says. “Or less likely to do – what I do. Can’t you just leave me alone to do it? Why the need to interfere?”

Rogers pauses, and instead of stacking the chair he’s holding with all the rest, puts it down and sits on it. “Sit, if you will?” he invites.

Matt chooses to stand, hands on hips, waiting. Rogers sighs.

“Because I feel guilty too,” he says. “This whole thing, the Snap, Thanos – it’s all our fault, really. We could have stopped him. We should have stopped him. But we failed, and then we failed to stop Thor from taking a swing, and now Thanos is dead and your friends are gone. My friends are gone. So many people are gone. With what’s left, we need our heroes, and I don’t want to see good men burn themselves to the bone because I messed up.”

Matt considers his words. “Yeah, you should feel guilty,” he says. “But I’m not a hero, Captain. I don’t need looking after, or looking out for. I promise you, if I need backup I’ll call.”

He fetches his cane from the corner, loosens his tie, and heads out without waiting for Rogers’ reply.

He walks home. It’s a long way, but it’s a nice night and he needs the space – can’t think about stifling himself in the subway, even for a few minutes.

Matt’s almost back at his apartment when he hears the fight. It’s a violent one, with a knife, and there’s something vaguely familiar about one of the participants which he can’t put his finger on. He hesitates for a moment, scanning his surroundings, and finds what he’s looking for. A washing line on a narrow balcony, just two floors up. It takes no time at all to ditch the cane and his tie, shimmy up to the balcony and grab a t-shirt from the line to wrap around his head. In semi-Daredevil mode, Matt heads towards the noise.

There are two men in the fight – one with a knife, the other without – and the one without is clearly both the victim and losing. He’s defending himself adequately, but is tiring. Matt can hear his breathing, harsh and fast, and the attacker is bigger and fitter and stronger.

Not as fit or strong as Matt, even a Matt still carrying injuries. He ducks into the fight with a lunging kick and follows through with an uppercut. He gets a minor cut on his arm as the other man slashes wildly with the knife, but he has the measure of it now and a few moments later grips and twists the attacker’s right arm. The knife clatters to the sidewalk and the attacker gives up and runs off. Matt considers following for a moment, yet really there’s no point. He finds the knife and slips it into a pocket to dispose of later.

“Wait.”

Matt halts. He’d almost forgotten about the victim. He half turns his head, listening to the guy push himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against.

“Thanks,” the victim says, and once again there’s that tug of recognition. Matt frowns to himself, wondering how he knows the voice. A client?

“Sure,” he says in return, pitching his own voice low. “You okay?” He can’t smell blood, apart from his own from the small cut on his arm.

“Yeah.” The other man takes a step forward. “I know you.”

Matt’s muscles tense, but before he can react, or move, or run, the guy says, “I interviewed you. A few months ago.”

The cogs in Matt’s brain click into place. The reporter, from the _Bugle_. Now he can place the voice, and a faint scent of stale coffee and sweat. He feels around for a way out, but it’s lacking.

“Right?” says the reporter. “I’m right, aren’t I? You’re Matt Murdock, the lawyer. I spent an hour looking at you, I’d know your face even with that cloth over it. You were wearing the same shirt.” Indignation rises in his voice. “Why were you faking the blindness? How did you get here? Why did you help me?”

There are two options Matt can think of. Denial, and get out of there. Acceptance, and talk the reporter out of taking things further. He rather suspects that denial would only lead to a knock on the door or a phone call the following day.

He turns, and pulls the stolen t-shirt from his head.

“You’ve got a good memory for faces,” he says. “Better than mine, for names.”

“Jake Mackenzie,” says the reporter. “I’ve got a good memory. It’s a useful skill, for a journalist. Blind trust in an interviewee, not so much.”

Matt casts around for a trashcan and smells one a short distance away. He balls up the t-shirt and throws it over his shoulder into the trash, where it lands. “I didn’t lie to you,” he says. “You must have read up on me. My dad was a boxer. I heard the fight and thought, why not try to stop it?”

“If you’re blind, why wear something over your eyes?” Jake Mackenzie counters.

“It’s not so great for a lawyer to be caught hitting people,” Matt points out. “I guess I was trying to disguise myself.”

There is silence, and Matt can almost feel the other man staring at him.

“Why are you here?” he asks, to break the silence. “In Hell’s Kitchen, I mean.”

“Oh,” says Mackenzie, shifting his feet, “well, my editor’s still got this thing about Dare …” he tails off. “ _Oh_ ,” he says, again, his heart suddenly racing.

Matt’s own heart sinks. The evening has turned into disaster, and he’s wishing he’d left the fight to run its course, that he hadn’t gone to Steve Rogers’ meeting, that he’d just gone out patrolling as normal.

“I told you, I’ve never met Daredevil,” he says, trying to project blazing innocence.

“Mr Murdock, I’m a junior reporter at a trashy newspaper,” the reporter says. “I make twenty-five grand a year. My editor’s offering a hundred for Daredevil’s identity. I just saw you fight. Please don’t treat me like an idiot.”

Matt forgets about innocence, feeling his fists clench almost automatically. There’s an immediate reaction from Mackenzie as his pulse picks up.

“I helped you tonight,” Matt says, teeth clenched and voice low. “That guy, he could have stabbed you. Mugged you.”

“Yeah.” The young man agrees, and there’s resignation in his voice. “Yeah, you did, and I don’t agree with my boss that we need to unmask Daredevil. But a hundred grand, man. Do you have any idea what that could do to my life?”

“You think I make a ton of cash as a defence attorney in Hell’s Kitchen?” Matt counters. “Look. What if I offer you something in return? Something you can take to your editor which might take his mind off the Daredevil story?”

“Like what?” There is curiosity in Mackenzie’s voice.

Matt hopes he’s not burning all his bridges at once. “I can get you an exclusive interview with Captain America,” he says.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. You must know … well, you must have seen that he and …” Matt shrugs. “You’ve surely seen online that he helped me out, the other week.” There, now he’s actually admitted to someone else that he’s Daredevil, but he hopes the sign of trust will help. “I think he might do this too.”

Mackenzie takes a step forwards, and pauses. “I’m holding my hand out,” he says, after a moment. “To shake. Wow, you really are blind?”

Matt holds out his own hand, and the other man takes it. “I really am blind,” he says. “And I promise I’ll be in touch. Give me a couple of days.”

“Three,” says Mackenzie. “Captain America, or I take the Daredevil story to my editor.”

“It’s a deal,” Matt agrees. “Three days.”


	11. Year 3 (part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He listens to Rogers breathing down the phone, and wishes he could hear the other man’s heartrate too. He can’t tell just how annoyed he is, and, despite everything, he knows he has at least an ally in Captain America. Jeopardising that suddenly seems incredibly stupid._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am optimistic the next update might be quicker than the last couple. I've probably jinxed myself saying this. This chapter is mostly talk. Next chapter will be more action. 
> 
> Continued thanks for the comments, kudos and encouragement, it is much appreciated. This is by far the longest thing I've written in a very very very long time and I am determined to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.

Matt puts off calling Steve Rogers until lunchtime the next day. Rogers sounds pleased to hear his voice.

“Matt. It was good to see you last night. Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah.” Matt rubs his brow with the hand not holding his phone. “So … I was wondering if you might be able to do something for me, in return.”

“Of course,” Rogers says. “Anything.”

“I hope you don’t regret saying that,” Matt says.

He describes his evening, and the promise made to the reporter.

“Oh,” says Rogers, after a pause.

Matt paces his office. “If you can’t, or you … or you won’t,” he says, “it’s fine. I’ll handle it.”

“How?” Rogers asks, but he doesn’t sound angry, particularly. “I understand, Matt. If your identity was revealed it would cause you difficulties, I get that.”

“I shouldn’t have promised something that wasn’t mine to give,” Matt apologises.

He listens to Rogers breathing down the phone, and wishes he could hear the other man’s heartrate too. He can’t tell just how annoyed he is, and, despite everything, he knows he has at least an ally in Captain America. Jeopardising that suddenly seems incredibly stupid.

“I need to call Nat,” Rogers says, after a moment. “She should know. But of course I’ll do it. It’s been three years. We’re in a pretty good place, right now, with the government, and I can talk about the groups and the other stuff we’re doing. It might even be beneficial.” He makes a sort of huffing noise. “I wish it wasn’t the _Bugle_ , mind you.”

“I wish it wasn’t the _Bugle_ too,” Matt says, “but I’ve wished for a lot of things in the last three years that haven’t come true.”

“Amen, brother,” says Rogers, with feeling. “Okay. I’ll call Nat, and I’ll confirm – tomorrow okay?”

“Thank you,” Matt says, devoutly grateful.

He gets through the day, and at the end of it unfolds his cane and heads to church for evening Mass. Sister Maggie is there, and he can almost feel her smiling at him from across the aisle. Afterwards, as he waits outside the confessional for Father O’Malley, she comes over.

“Hello, Matthew.”

“Hi.” He gives her a half-smile from under his glasses, his chin propped on his hands folded over the handle of his cane.

“You look …” she is clearly giving him a good examination, “tired.”

“So everyone keeps telling me. I’m fine.”

“Hmm.” There is a rustle of wool and nylon as she sits down beside him. “But feeling guilty about something, or you wouldn’t be here. You haven’t been to confession in weeks.”

“Keeping tabs on me?” Matt asks, unable to stop a little frost creeping into his voice.

Maggie shrugs, the material of her veil brushing against the scratchy wool of her cardigan. “I miss you,” she admits.

Matt is saved from having to respond to this by the sound of the previous worshipper leaving the confessional. He stands up, and she stands too to let him get out of the pew. For a second, she rests her hand on his sleeve. “Don’t be a stranger, Matthew,” she says, and it’s as much a request as a command.

He nods.

In the peace of the confessional booth, the smell of old wood and varnish surround him like a cocoon, and he breathes in deeply before taking off his glasses and tucking them in his jacket pocket.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he begins, knowing that on the other side of the wood Father O’Malley will listen and comfort and guide. There is a very slight intake of breath from the priest as he hears Matt’s voice, but that is all. He lets Matt talk himself out, and gives him three decades of the rosary as penance.

As Matt gets up to go, putting his glasses back on, O’Malley adds: “And look after yourself, okay?”

Matt does not go out patrolling that night. Instead, he picks up takeout from the Indian restaurant which had been Karen’s favourite, and goes home to eat it, a beer by his side and music muffling the sound of the city.

Steve Rogers calls halfway through the following morning, breaking Matt off from work on an opening statement for a trial due to start the following week. It’s good news: Natasha Romanoff has, grudgingly, given the go-ahead for the interview.

“But she wants you to sit in on it, as my lawyer,” Rogers adds.

They agree a day and time, and Matt puts the phone down and sits for a while, still, listening to traffic and the sound of the store beneath his office and the subway rumbling underneath the street. Then he opens a blank email, finds Jake Mackenzie’s email address, and sends him a message.

Rogers turns up for the interview dressed in casual clothes – a t-shirt, and jeans, and a leather jacket. The leather smells old and worn and Matt wonders idly how long Rogers has had it. Together they run through each other’s ground rules – no mention of Daredevil, no specific details about Avengers’ missions – and they’re ready.

Mackenzie sounds nervous when he arrives, and his palm is sweaty when he takes Matt’s outstretched hand to shake it. Maybe he’s regretting his deal with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. The thought makes Matt more confident that they can make this work.

They all sit around Matt’s desk, which he’s tried to tidy up for the occasion, and Mackenzie puts his digital recorder down with a gentle clunk of plastic.

“Before you turn that on,” says Matt, “some conditions. Captain Rogers?”

“Right,” says Rogers. “I won’t talk about anything that could compromise the current operational integrity of the Avengers Initiative, such as it is. Nor will I talk in detail about the mission which led to the Snap, although I am prepared to acknowledge facts which are already in the public domain.”

“And any details about the relationship between Captain America and the vigilante known as Daredevil,” Matt adds, “will not reveal the latter’s identity.”

The reporter rustles paper.

“He nodded,” Rogers says. “All right then, why don’t we begin?”

They have ruffled Mackenzie’s composure enough that he starts off with soft questions that Rogers easily fields, and none of it new – the creation of Captain America, his war service, his time in the ice, the Avengers. But then the reporter warms up, and starts getting more personal.

“How did you feel, after the Snap?” he asks, and Matt hears Rogers’ heavy pulse pick up.

“Angry. Grieving. Helpless,” Rogers says. “I lost my best friend that day.”

“I’m pretty sure the whole world felt the same way,” Mackenzie points out. “I lost my brother. But I, and most of us, had no warning.”

Rogers’ chair creaks as he shifts his weight. “I am not trying to put my loss ahead of anyone else’s loss,” he says, carefully and coldly, “but those who died trying to stop Thanos were as much the victims as your brother. And those of us who failed to stop him can still grieve for our friends, although we also carry guilt for our failure.” He sighs. “I’ve seen way too much loss in my years, Mr Mackenzie. Do you think I wanted to see more?”

The words hit home, and Mackenzie coughs. “I thought not,” says Rogers, evidently in response to the reporter shaking his head.

“Okay,” Mackenzie says. “Let’s move on. Tell me about what you’ve been doing for the last three years, Captain?”

Rogers describes, in often vague detail, the types of things he and Romanoff and the few remaining Avengers have been working on. He goes into the most detail about the community efforts like his group sessions.

“There’s a whole network of them now, around the city,” he explains. “I go to them when I can, but there are other good folk helping out. It’s just a way for people to talk, y’know? Sometimes it’s easier to talk to strangers than friends.”

“That’s true,” Mackenzie acknowledges. “But why you?”

Shifting on his chair, Rogers considers for a moment. “Because at the end of everything,” he says, “I’m just a guy from Brooklyn who got a lucky break once upon a time. I got the chance to make a difference, but that doesn’t always mean with the shield.”

“Your power’s with the shield, though,” argues Mackenzie.

“I don’t want the shield to be all that defines me,” Rogers shoots back. “Sometimes I just like being Steve Rogers, not Captain America.”

Mackenzie’s pen scratches on paper. “Aren’t they the same person?” he asks.

“Not always.”

The reporter writes a moment longer, and then his pen pauses again. “So, moving on,” he says, “as a member of the Avengers, what are your views on vigilantism?”

Both their heart rates judder for a moment. Mackenzie is nervous asking the question. Rogers is angry on Matt’s behalf. Matt nods at Rogers.

“I think you can answer that, Captain,” he puts in.

“I believe that this city would be worse off without them,” Rogers says. “Sometimes you have to make the hard choices, and the likes of Daredevil and Luke Cage – well, they make them. And the streets are safer for them. The Avengers Initiative was set up by Tony Stark to keep the world safe from the big threats, but we can’t keep an eye on the smaller ones. At the end of the day, you’re much more likely to be mugged on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen than you are to be caught up in an alien attack.”

Matt can’t help a smile crossing his lips. Rogers, as usual, is entirely genuine. No faking, no dissembling. His earnestness rang through every word.

Mackenzie goes through the rest of his questions, and Rogers answers them, honestly and fairly. Finally, the interview is at an end. Mackenzie turns off his recorder, packs up his notebook, and stands to go.

“Thanks,” he says, to both of them. “This was great. My editor’s really pleased, you know.”

“Will he drop the Daredevil reward?” Rogers asks.

“Probably not,” the reporter admits, “but if we can keep him from thinking about it, it helps.”

Matt holds out a hand. “If you’re in Hell’s Kitchen, and find you need … help,” he says, “just call. I’ll hear.”

The words make Mackenzie nervous again, and his palm is slightly clammy when he grasps Matt’s hand.

“I’ll see you out,” says Rogers.

Matt takes out the empty water glasses and is checking his emails when Rogers comes back up the stairs with a slow, thoughtful tread.

“I liked him,” he says, without preamble. “Seems like a genuine kid.”

“Yeah.” Matt nods. “I wish I could help him move from the _Bugle_. I think he’d do well at the _Bulletin_.”

“Do you know the editor?” Rogers asks, leaning on the doorframe.

“Only as …” Matt waves a hand at his face. “So, no.” He sighs. “We’ll just have to trust Mackenzie’s integrity and hope his piece doesn’t get edited out of all recognition. The last one was okay.” He does his best to look straight at Rogers. “I appreciate this. Means a lot. If I can return the favour – well, let me know. But maybe not any more of your meetings.”

“Ha.” Rogers’ laugh is short. “You got it, Murdock.”

He heads off, and Matt listens to him until his steps and heartbeat are out of range before turning back to his emails.

He checks the _Bugle_ ’s website every day for a week before the interview finally appears. It’s good. Mackenzie hasn’t let them down. The quotes seem accurate, the terms of the interview have been met, and while there is – justified, Matt has to concede – criticism of the Avengers’ actions in the lead-up to the Snap, overall it is a sympathetic piece.

The rest of the media pick up on it too, and for a few days Matt feels like he can’t hear anything but various channels discussing the interview. There is keen interest in the local media about Captain America’s relationship with Daredevil, which most seem to think of as a positive.

“Hell, if he can throw his shield at a mugger once in a while, wouldn’t hurt,” is Brett Mahoney’s assessment, when Matt bumps into him at a coffee cart one morning.

“Tell Captain America I’m available, if he needs patching up,” Claire texts, to Matt’s burner.

Matt grins to himself, and texts back, “I think he has super-healing, but thanks.”

“I used to have a Captain America action figure, when I was a kid,” says Danny, when they meet for a sparring session. “I think it was vintage. Used to think he was pretty cool. Wasn’t so sure, when we met, but maybe I was wrong.”

Matt blocks a kick and returns one of his own, focusing on the sound of Danny’s bare feet on the floor. “I’ve warmed to him,” he says, ducking and rolling. “He means well.”

Mackenzie himself, ten days or so after the article appears, rocks up in Hell’s Kitchen and waits until Matt finds him.

“Had a job offer today,” he says, once his heartrate has calmed from the shock of Matt’s appearance from a fire escape above. “Mitchell Ellison of the _Bulletin_ called. Says he thinks my, I quote ‘pro-vigilante’ stance would suit better over there than at the _Bugle_.”

“I agree,” Matt says.

“You have anything to do with it?” the reporter asks.

“Nothing,” Matt returns. “I’m glad. Ellison’s a good man. My friend worked for him, once.”

“Karen Page, right?” Mackenzie says. “I liked her stuff. Sorry she … well, you know. Anyway, I just wanted to say, deal still holds. I won’t say anything.”

Matt holds out his gloved hand, and they shake. “Likewise,” he says. “If you need me, call.”


	12. Year 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In the event, it is Rogers who calls, a few months later and just after the annual memorial ceremonies. “I’m cashing in on your favour,” he says without preamble. “There’s an incursion of aliens, in Georgia. We need backup, Nat and I.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure this chapter/year went entirely where I planned it to go, but it went there. So, erm, yeah.

In the event, it is Rogers who calls, a few months later and just after the annual memorial ceremonies. “I’m cashing in on your favour,” he says without preamble. “There’s an incursion of aliens, in Georgia. We need backup, Nat and I.”

“Georgia?” Matt says. It is early, and he was out late, and Rogers has caught him in bed.

“The country, not the state,” Rogers clarifies. “Can you ask Rand and Cage if they’ll come? With you three and Nat we can handle it. Everyone else is … busy.”

Matt swings his legs out of bed and rubs a hand across his face. “You’re asking me to ask Danny and Luke to come and fight aliens with you? In Georgia?”

“Yes. Jet leaves in 90 minutes. We’ll send a car.”

“I have clients,” Matt says, but remembers his promise. “Okay. I’ll make some calls.”

He’s still making calls when the limo rolls into the airport. Danny is waiting for him, vibrating with excitement; Matt can hear Luke not so far away, a calm, solid presence.

“Thanks, Marci,” Matt says. “I owe you one.”

“Sounds like you’re just constantly racking up the favours these days, Murdock,” Marci says, without rancour, on the other end of the phone. “I’ll send Amanda over. She’s good, and she’s wasted on contracts. Your clients will be safe with me. Go and kick some alien butt.”

Matt thanks her again, and takes Danny’s proffered elbow.

The plane smells odd; the air is sterile and everything is artificial and dry. Luke catches him sniffing.

“What’s wrong, Murdock?” he asks, and then before Matt can reply, says with a sound of realisation, “you ain’t never flown before?”

“No,” Matt says, shortly. “Never had reason to.”

“Luckily you’ve got the best pilot in the business for your inaugural flight, then,” puts in another voice. “Murdock.”

“Miss Romanoff,” Matt acknowledges.

“Jeez. Natasha, please. All right, gents, buckle in. Steve will give you the briefing once we’re airborne.”

Matt struggles for a moment with the unfamiliar buckle before Danny leans across and helps him, even as Rogers boards the plane and closes the doors. “Gentlemen,” he greets them, taking his own seat. He smells different, and Matt realises this is Captain America, suit and shield and all, not Steve Rogers the World War Two veteran in a leather bomber jacket.

There is a roar of engines that makes Matt shrink into his seat. The plane taxis across the runway and, with the sound of the engines increasing and a bone-shaking judder, takes off. Matt realises as it leaves the ground that he’s clutching the arms of his seat and, for all the good it does, his eyes are screwed closed behind his glasses. He feels like the ground has dropped away beneath him which, he supposes, it has, and he does not like it.

The plane levels off after a few minutes and the pressure in his ears equalises somewhat, but the sound of the engines is still loud in his ears. There is a beep, and Romanoff’s voice comes over the intercom.

“We’re now cruising at 51,000 feet,” she says. “Feel free to wander around the cabin. Steve, over to you.”

“You okay, Murdock?” Luke asks.

Matt makes an effort, releases his grip on the seat arms and takes a deep breath of the horrible compressed air. “Fine,” he says.

Luke makes a noise that indicates he clearly does not agree, but they are interrupted by Rogers.

“Right,” he says, “this is what’s going to happen. Matt, I’m afraid I’ve got a screen here, but we’ll talk you through it.”

The briefing takes them out across the Atlantic. Focusing on something that isn’t the fact they are thousands of feet above solid ground, travelling in a metal tube, helps somewhat, but Matt is still glad when it’s over and Rogers hands him a pair of headphones.

“Noise reducing,” he says. “I know it won’t cut everything out, but we could all do with a bit of rest and I guess it’ll be tough for you. Four hours until we land.”

Matt slides the headphones on, and sounds are muffled.

“Thanks,” he says.

“No problem,” says Rogers.

The others sleep. Even with the headphones he can hear the way their breathing and heartbeats slow, and there is no movement from around the cabin. Matt closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but the alien feeling of flying is too weird and instead he makes his way carefully to the end of the cabin and sits on the floor to meditate, trying to use the engine noise as a help rather than a hindrance.

He is interrupted by Romanoff, opening the door at the other end of the cabin, and takes off the headphones to show he’s heard her.

“Shouldn’t you be flying the plane?” he asks.

“Autopilot,” she says. “Does most of the work when we’re cruising like this. You okay?”

Matt gets to his feet, fiddling with the headphones. “Sure,” he says, half-truthful.

“Ha.” Evidently, Romanoff doesn’t believe him. She vanishes for a few minutes into the little cubicle behind him, and then after she emerges, rummages in cupboards nearby and produces a bottle of water and a wrapped sandwich.

“You should eat,” she says. “About 90 minutes until we touch down. Tried sleeping?”

“There’s … too much,” Matt replies, taking the sandwich and the water.

She opens her own sandwich and takes a healthy bite. “Noise?”

“Kind of everything.” He finds a seat and tears the plastic wrapper on his food. It smells as odd as everything else on the plane, but he is hungry and he dutifully tries it – processed cheese and ham, a watery tomato, and soft, artificial bread. It’s horrible, but Matt chews and swallows anyway. Romanoff is right, he should eat.

He finishes his mouthful, and tries to explain. “I avoid the subway,” he says, “because there’s too many people, and the smell is dreadful. This … it’s different. Artificial. And the engines are so loud.”

“This is one of the quietest jets out there,” Romanoff says, with something that could be pity in her voice. “I suggest you never try flying coach, Murdock.”

“I don’t think I’ll try flying again unless I really have to,” Matt says, forcing down more of the sandwich.

“So noted.” Romanoff stands up with a squeak of leather. “I’ll let you know when it’s time to suit up.”

She wakes the others up about 45 minutes later, and Matt changes into his Daredevil outfit. The ritual of wrapping the ropes around his hands is soothing. Rogers is already in his Captain America costume, and Luke and Danny, as usual, are in their usual clothes.

“We all clear?” asks Rogers. One hand is unconsciously stroking the edge of the shield, and in Matt’s ears it makes a high-pitched ringing noise that he can hear even over the engines.

There is a rumble of assent from Luke, and from Danny, the surge of peculiar energy that says to Matt he has accessed his chi and is powering up the Iron Fist.

“Clear,” Matt says, for his own part, checking his batons are in his pants pockets and that his ropes are tight.

The aliens, Rogers has explained, have invaded a seaside resort on the Black Sea. Perhaps attracted by the lights, they have moved in and the inhabitants are running scared. The Georgian army has failed to repel them and clearly more serious tactics are required.

Matt is, quietly, doubtful about how much help he can bring. He does not have the super-strength of Luke or Rogers, or Danny’s fist; at the end of the day, his talents lie in taking down ordinary human beings, albeit more efficiently than most could manage. Still, he has promised Rogers, so he will do what he can.

Romanoff asks them to buckle in again for the landing, which is possibly more unnerving than the take-off. Matt closes his eyes again and recites the Lord’s Prayer to himself in his head as the pressure in his ears changes and the ground hurtles towards them. Somehow, the wheels touch down and the plane comes to a halt without incident, and he breathes out a long, slow breath.

The air outside the plane is blissfully fresh and real. It smells of salt and for a moment Matt just stands and breathes it in.

“We ain’t here on vacation, Murdock,” Luke says, but in a friendly way, giving Matt a brotherly slap on the arm as he passes.

There is a car waiting for them, and they pile into the back and are whizzed from the airport into the city centre. There is no traffic going in the same direction and it is eerily quiet.

And then it is not. He hears the aliens from several streets out – they’re chattering to each other in a sibilant, fast language and their heartrates are fast too. Then Matt smells them, and suddenly wishes he was back in the sterile tube of the plane. They smell appalling, an indescribable stench which goes straight to the back of his throat, and he gags.

“You okay?” asks Danny, worried.

Matt coughs, his eyes watering. “Can’t you _smell_ it?” he says.

“Nothing yet,” Rogers puts in, from the front seat, “but I was told the aliens are particularly unpleasant. We must be close.”

Matt pulls his mask further down over his nose, and tries to breathe shallowly, wondering again quite why he’s come.

Romanoff pulls the car into a sidestreet and they get out. The noise and the smell now are overwhelming. As he follows the others closer, Matt tries to remember what Rogers has told them about the alien anatomy, where to hit and how, and to forget about the way his body is telling him to run very far and very fast in the opposite direction.

The battle starts when one of the aliens spots them, chitters something in its strange language, and launches itself straight at Danny. Danny’s fist surges into life with a buzzing in Matt’s ears, and then there’s a metallic ring as Rogers sends his shield spinning into the fray. And then, with a skitter of feet on the floor – the things are bipedal – they’re on Matt, and he’s moving without thinking.

Afterwards, he couldn’t have told anyone how long the fight had lasted. The initial surge of adrenaline took him through the first wave, and then sheer desperation and the sudden knowledge that he did not want to die took him through the second. Rogers’ shield was singing, Danny’s fist humming, and Luke was a solid wall, absorbing every hit thrown at him.

And the aliens kept on coming. At some point, each side regroups and there is a pause. Even Luke is breathing heavily and Matt is sure the others are as exhausted as he feels. He has a gash in his arm and another on his forehead that’s gone through the mask.

“This ain’t working,” Luke comments.

“Concur,” says Romanoff, shortly. “There’s five of us, way too many of them.”

“Withdraw?” Luke asks.

“We’re not giving up,” Rogers says, firmly. “We just need to revise the plan.”

Romanoff sighs, evidently knowing that Rogers is not going to shift on this, and changes the cartridge in her pistol with a metallic clunk. “Okay, Steve, what you got?” she asks.

Matt holds up a hand. He has been listening to the aliens, which are chattering to each other at a safe distance. But they are gathered in a group, close to each other, and Matt has had an idea.

“What would happen,” he asks, “if the force from Danny’s fist connected with your shield, Captain?”

There is silence.

“I don’t know,” Rogers says, slowly. “I guess there’d be some sort of shockwave.”

“How good’s your aim?” Matt presses. “If you threw it, like a … like a frisbee … and Danny punched in that direction, I think the shockwave might ricochet back down to the aliens.”

“Might?” Luke is sceptical.

“I don’t have any better ideas,” Matt admits. “And nor do any of you.”

They discuss the idea for a few minutes more and conclude that Matt is right. Nobody has anything better. They have no idea whether or not such a shockwave will kill the aliens, but, as Romanoff notes, it might be enough to encourage them to leave Earth.

Separating, they form a wide circle around the aliens. Danny powers up the fist and Rogers, with a muttered, “let’s hope this works,” which nobody but Matt hears, launches his shield into the air.

The shockwave works. The energy from Danny’s fist hits the shield dead centre, ringing loud in Matt’s ears and then ricocheting back down to earth.

“Duck!” roars Luke.

They all throw themselves to the ground. Matt drops his billy clubs and claps his hands over his ears, but it does not block out the noise and the pressure, and he is not aware of anything much for what seems like an age. He comes to himself again when a strong hand helps him to his feet, and he focuses his senses and realises the aliens are all still. All dead. He turns to one side, and throws up the plastic sandwich he had eaten on the plane.

The Georgian authorities arrive soon afterwards, and Luke, Danny and Matt stand to one side while Romanoff talks to them in rapid, fluent Russian and translates for Rogers. Danny touches Matt’s arm.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Fine,” Matt says, as lightly as he can. “You?”

“Drained,” Danny admits. “That last punch, man, took it out of me. Still, good idea you had.”

“I didn’t want to kill them all,” Matt says.

Luke shifts next to them. “Don’t think we had much of a choice,” he observes. “It was us or them. You can’t save ‘em all, Murdock, and trust me, we’ve saved the folk of this town by doing this.”

Eventually they’re able to go, with a flurry of thanks from the Georgian police and Army. A TV crew has turned up too and Rogers stops to talk to them, handling their questions with practised ease. Then it’s back in the car and back to the plane.

Matt is grateful for the on-board shower, not just for his own sake but also for the sake of minimising the lingering alien smell which clings to all their clothes. He bundles his own in two plastic bags inside his kitbag, and resolves to burn them on return to the Kitchen.

When he emerges from the shower there is food – cheese, and meat, and a sort of bread filled with cheese which is genuinely one of the best things Matt has eaten for a long time. There is alcohol too, a vodka-like spirit which burns on the way down his gullet and which tastes, behind the burn, of raisins.

“What is this?” He sniffs at the empty glass.

“Chacha,” says Romanoff, refilling. “Suitably lethal. Don’t worry, I’m not drinking much, I’ve got to get you all home.” She chinks a glass against Matt’s anyway, and adds, “ _na zdorovie_ ”.

The warm haze of the alcohol makes the take-off less painful, and as the others fall asleep again Matt keeps the bottle by his side and sips at the chacha until his senses are pleasantly dulled and he too can drift into a kind of sleep.

Danny has arranged a limo to pick them up at the airfield. Romanoff and Rogers are flying on, back to the upstate base which is now Avengers headquarters. There are brief farewells and thanks, but soon Matt is cocooned in the leather upholstery of a Rand Enterprises limousine, the sounds of New York growing in his ears as they approach Manhattan.

“Will you drop me off?” he asks Danny, as the limo exits the tunnel and hits Lower Manhattan. “Penn Station would be fine.”

“We can take you to your door,” Danny says.

“I need to walk,” Matt returns.

“‘Kay,” says Danny, and leans forward to tell the driver.

The feel of the sidewalk underneath his feet feels amazing – familiar, firm. Matt gets his cane out for the look of the thing, but he knows where he is and navigates unerringly north towards Hell’s Kitchen, breathing in the odours of the New York streets with pleasure, feeling the steam rising from the subway, hearing the noise of the traffic and the many accents of the people around him. It is real in a way the last day has not been, and some of his unease caused by the flights and the fight and the aliens dissipates.

He skips heading straight home, and instead goes to Clinton Church. He’s just in time for Mass, and the familiar liturgy and incense help calm his mood further. By the end of the service he feels much more like his normal self, and able to go and find his mother.

She is in the middle of tidying the kindergarten playroom, and he navigates past three plastic vehicles and a ball before she sees him.

“Matthew!” Her knees make a slight grinding noise as she stands, and Matt winces. They missed so many years, and now his mother is getting old.

“Hey,” he says.

Maggie takes his hand and sits him down on one of the room’s small chairs, pulling up another next to him. He reflects they must look ridiculous, perched on child’s chairs, but Maggie’s hand is warm in his and he finds he does not mind.

“I saw the news,” she says, “from Georgia.”

“Already?”

“It’s pretty much everywhere,” Maggie says. “Are you okay, Matthew?”

He takes his hand from hers and rubs his face, taking off his glasses briefly before putting them back on again. “I … I didn’t want to kill them,” he admits. “I know they were invaders, I know what we were there to do, but … it was my idea, and they’re all dead.”

Maggie sighs, and pats his shoulder. “Matthew, from what the news is saying, you and the others did a good thing out there.”

“Shouldn’t ‘thou shalt not kill’ apply to all beings?” Matt asks.

“What happened to the Matthew who wanted so very badly to kill Wilson Fisk?” Maggie returns, gently.

“He … learned better,” says Matt. “Or I thought I had.”

“I think this was necessary,” Maggie tells him, softly. “I’m sure Father O’Malley will say the same. Confession’s in half an hour. Coffee, first, perhaps? And you can tell me how your cases are going. Your legal work.”

He lets her deflect him from aliens, accepts a coffee, and they catch up. Later, in the confessional, Father O’Malley does indeed say the same and Matt finally goes home feeling – if not lighter in heart – at least somewhat unburdened.

Over the next few months he makes a concerted effort to stay in touch with Danny and with Luke. There is an occasional email or text from Rogers, but he gets the sense that the Avengers are busy with more important things than Hell’s Kitchen and that, for whatever reason, they don’t need the help of New York’s vigilantes. Matt doesn’t mind. He has plenty of work on, and there is just enough activity at night to keep him from going stir-crazy but not so much that he falls back into the spiral of exhaustion he had been in the previous year.

He also finds, as the weeks pass, that he is seeing even more of Marci Stahl, and, to his surprise, that he genuinely looks forward to the times they meet, whether for work or just drinks. Marci’s unwavering matter-of-fact attitude and her brains are, Matt has to admit, attractive, and he also appreciates the way that she never treats him as blind. He’s not sure why she wants to spend so much time with him.

By tacit agreement neither of them talk much about Foggy anymore, although he’s pretty sure Marci still thinks about him – maybe almost as much as Matt does. Matt still runs opening and closing arguments past Foggy, in his head, but it is getting harder to hear what Foggy might have thought of them.

But he has stubbornly refused to think of Marci as anything more than a friend. He knows she’s not immune to his smile, and he knows too that he is not immune to her scent and her laugh, but whether or not they talk about him, Foggy remains between them.

For her 35th birthday, Marci throws a drinks party at a SoHo bar, and persuades Matt to come.

“No Daredeviling for a night,” she says, “just drinks. Anyway, you’ll know half the guests, they’re mostly Columbia alums.”

It sounds like hell, but he agrees, and goes, and spends the evening making awkward conversation with people. Most of them say they are impressed Matt has chosen not to follow the corporate route. Some of the women try to flirt with him, especially those he had slept with in college. Wilson Fisk comes up a few times, and Frank Castle, and Foggy. Matt drinks a little more than he should, and by the time the party thins out he feels he actually needs the cane for once.

Marci notices, and pulls him with her to sit down, complaining that her feet hurt.

“What are you wearing?” he asks, acquiescing.

She pulls off a shoe and hands it to him, and then laughs as he wrinkles his nose. Marci herself might be clean and fragrant from the shower she had earlier, but her feet and her shoes still carry a faint smell of sweat. Nevertheless he runs his hand over what turns out to be some sort of pump with a long, spiky heel and a thin sole.

“You could stab someone with this,” he observes, passing the shoe back.

“Every woman’s secret weapon,” Marci returns. She pushes a glass across the table. “Water, Murdock.”

“I know it’s water,” Matt says, but he picks up the glass and takes a long, refreshing draught anyway.

He stays until it’s just the two of them left, and Marci pays the bar tab and puts on her coat.

“Can I walk you home?” he asks her. “Or call you a cab?”

“You walking me home, or am I walking you?” Marci asks.

“Let’s walk each other,” Matt says, “at least as far as your place. I’ll be fine from there.”

She takes his left arm in hers, and they head out into the night. The air does make Matt feel less fuzzy, and they stroll along in contented silence towards Marci’s apartment a few blocks away.

When they get there, he waits while she finds her keys at the bottom of her purse. She pulls them out with a metallic jangle, and Matt expects her to open the door and bid him good night. Instead, Marci steps abruptly back to him and, as he registers her heartbeat picking up, he feels her lips against his. He responds, almost automatically, and then pulls fractionally away from her.

“Marci, I …” he says, helplessly.

“If you try and tell me you don’t find me at some level attractive,” Marci says fiercely, “I’m calling you out as a goddamned liar, Matthew Murdock.”

“Well …” Matt manages.

“So kiss me. Or more. How long’s it been since you slept with anyone?”

Matt shrugs. “No idea.” In truth, it’s been years: explaining away his scars had been complex enough even before the Snap, and since then, somehow, he hasn’t had the energy.

“I know you,” she argues. “I know who you are, what you do, what you can do. I like you. I’m not in love with you.”

“Oh,” says Matt.

Marci takes his arm and tugs him to the door, which she opens. “Come upstairs. No strings, Matt.” He opens his mouth, and she puts a finger over it. “And I know what you’re going to say next. Something about Foggy Bear. I loved Foggy. But he’s gone, he’s been gone for four years, and he’d want his friends to be happy.”

That is true. Matt feels his resistance start to crumble in the face of Marci’s arguments, and the taste of her lingering on his lips.

“And you’re too drunk to go and fight anyone tonight,” she says. She leans in, smelling of booze and perfume and a hint of arousal. “Half the girls tonight asked me if we’d slept together. You still have quite the reputation, Murdock.”

Matt, in his head asking God and Foggy for forgiveness, smiles at Marci with Daredevil’s smile, and tilts her chin up so he can kiss her properly. “I do?” he says, breaking away when her breathing becomes shorter. “I suppose I’d better try and maintain it, then.”

She grabs his hand, and leads him upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few post-chapter notes on Georgia (the country, not the state). It was a totally random choice for the alien invasion, but also, why not? The city where I have the battle taking place is the Black Sea resort of Batumi, an odd place which has become a holiday destination for Russians and is full of casinos and fancy hotels and so on. It's interesting. Kind of worth a visit, but the rest of Georgia is even nicer.
> 
> The bread filled with cheese which Matt enjoys on the plane is khachapuri, which comes in many different forms but its most famous version, Adjaruli, comes from Batumi and is shaped a bit like a boat. The bread forms a vessel for melted cheese and there's an egg on top. It's genuinely one of the best things I've ever eaten. Chacha, meanwhile, is ubiquitous; it's made from grape skins and stuff discarded during wine-making. It's lethal. If you're travelling in Georgia and are staying in a B&B or homestay they _will_ feed you shots of the stuff. 
> 
> And a post-chapter note on Marci/Matt. It's been building for a while and I've hinted at it in previous chapters, and it seemed inevitable. I see them as having a relationship built on honesty, which for Matt is weird, but he's been forced into honesty in this fic through circumstance. They're drawn to each other by that, and by their shared love of Foggy, and in their own ways, they're both lonely. It's not love, but I think it is genuine affection. But next year is Year 5, so ...


	13. Year 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The day it happens, he’s at the 15th Precinct with a new client – a young woman, caught pickpocketing a businessman._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter almost wrote itself (also, I had less work and more free time). Warning: emotions.

Nobody Matt and Marci know seem terribly surprised that the two of them are dating – because, Matt has to admit to himself after a few months, that’s what it is. They’re honest with each other. It’s not love, as Marci said on her birthday, but they get on, the sex is great and Matt appreciates that he doesn’t have to lie to her. They don’t have a regular date, but hook up when it matches their schedules.

It is surprisingly good, and everyone in Matt’s life seems to agree. Father O’Malley even laughed when Matt took the news to confession and said there was nothing to absolve him of. Brett Mahoney, when Matt bumps into him at the precinct, comments that he seems to be happy.

“It’s a good look on you, Murdock,” he adds. “Now, your guy’s been accused of three counts of arson, you sure you want to take this one on?”

“Accused, Brett, accused,” says Matt, and gives the detective a gentle bump on his arm. “I’m sure.”

He gets the alleged arsonist off the charges. Like most of his clients, the guy is a victim of circumstance – of the Snap, of poverty, of the Kitchen. He is lonely, too, with all his family save for an elderly aunt Snapped. Matt, after accepting thanks and the paltry payment his client can afford, suggests he goes to one of Steve Rogers’ meetings.

“They’re … well, you might find some other guys like you,” Matt says, after dictating details of the meeting time and location into a text message. “Give it a go.”

He’s seen Rogers a couple of times himself since the fourth anniversary of the Snap. Whatever mysterious mission he and Romanoff had gone off on after Georgia was resolved, and Rogers has come back to New York once a month for his meetings. Matt has refused to go to them, but he and Rogers – and, once, Danny – have had a drink afterwards. Matt took Rogers to Josie’s, safe in the knowledge that nobody there would know or care who his companion was.

He keeps patrolling, four or five nights a week. Sometimes he goes to Marci’s at the end of the night, leaving the Kitchen to cross the blocks over to her place and slipping in through the fire escape on the roof. Marci has confessed that she finds the Daredevil outfit “kind of hot” and the nervous energy Matt often carries after a few scraps drives his own mood. There is seldom anything serious these days when it comes to the fights, in truth – Matt wonders if the publicity after Georgia had made the local criminals just that bit more nervous of their resident vigilante. More of them seem to run when they see him than engage.

Claire, certainly, is happy about this development. Luke invites Matt to a jazz night in Harlem and Matt takes Marci along with him. To his surprise, Claire is there too, and after hugging him in welcome she examines him critically.

“No scrapes, no broken bones and only a few bruises?” she asks. “Who are you and what have you done with Matt Murdock? Oh, hey, Marci.”

“Hi, Claire,” says Marci, with a smile in her voice.

Claire moves in for a hug. “I hear the two of you are … something. Congratulations. Anyone who can put up with Matt’s … Matt-ness … deserves a medal.”

“Don’t I just?” agrees Marci. “Drink?”

They head off together. Behind Matt’s shoulder, Luke’s rumble of a laugh breaks into his thoughts.

“You may live to regret introducing those two,” he says.

Matt gives up trying to listen into Marci and Claire’s conversation. Over the buzz of the other guests’ chatter and the sound of jazz it requires too much focus. He turns to Luke instead, and they fall into conversation about the state of their respective neighbourhoods. Luke has had the same experience as Matt – evidently, the reputation of what the newspapers call the Defenders has risen since their collaboration with the Avengers. For Luke, that’s meant that he’s been able to focus on building his business at Harlem’s Paradise. He seems content.

“I am,” Luke agrees, when Matt suggests this. “Despite … despite everything, I am content.”

Matt and Marci leave just after midnight, flagging down a cab. Marci maintains it’s because her feet are, as usual, hurting after a night in heels, but Matt thinks it’s probably because she doesn’t want him suffering on the subway. He also knows they’ll have their usual argument over who pays, and Marci will probably win it.

“I do like Claire,” Marci says. “She’s … sensible. And tough.”

“She is both.”

“Did you ever – I mean, she’s hot, you know that, right?”

Matt remembers a moment of intimacy, years ago, in another place. “It didn’t go anywhere,” he says. “Claire very sensibly decided that she didn’t want all the shit I came with.”

“I’m not doing this for the shit you come with,” says Marci, leaning into his arm. “I’m in this purely for self-gratification. Stay at mine?”

“Sure,” Matt agrees, letting his hand drift to her thigh.

By some miracle the routine is maintained for a good six months. He wins some cases and loses some others. He and Marci have a few fights, but manage to make up. He spars with Danny, drinks with Luke, and meets Rogers now and then. He keeps tabs on Jake Mackenzie at the _Bulletin_ , and feeds him gossip when he knows it’s not going to prejudice a client’s case.

One evening in fall Matt is finishing up paperwork. He’s got a court hearing the following day and then a drink with Rogers at Josie’s is pencilled in, but as Matt prepares to go over his witness statements one final time a text arrives.

“Steve Rogers,” his phone announces. “Sorry. Have to cancel tomorrow, something’s come up.”

Matt shrugs to himself and carries on with his witness statements.

There is nothing special about the next few weeks. He has a couple of scrappy fights with muggers, and another with a gun-toting car thief, but he comes off better each time.

The day it happens, he’s at the 15th Precinct with a new client – a young woman, caught pickpocketing a businessman. Matt’s carefully taking her through her story when there’s a crack, the sound echoing all around them, and then the world is suddenly twice as loud and there’s another heartbeat in the room.

“Oh my God,” his client says. “Oh my God.”

Matt focuses. There’s definitely another person in the interview room who hadn’t been there a second before, and his breathing is fast and panicked.

“What happened?” says the newcomer – a man, that’s all Matt can really pick up. “Where was I?”

The door crashes open and a cop sticks his head in. “They’re back. Everyone’s back,” he says.

“Oh my God,” says Matt’s client, again. “Mom.”

Matt realises, with a crash of knowledge, what has happened. “Everyone who …” he manages, and the cop, handcuffing the man who has appeared in the interview room, says, “yeah, all of them”.

He’s out of the precinct before he thinks about it, before he realises he’s left briefcase and laptop and cane in the interview room, and is weaving between the sudden crowds on the sidewalk as though he isn’t blind. Matt doesn’t care. Even as he runs, his ears are straining for familiar heartbeats he’d thought never to hear before.

Nelson’s Meats is now a hardware store – has been for two or three years – but the offices upstairs are empty. Matt barrels through the door, past the storeowner, and past the racing heartbeat of Theo Nelson. Ignoring the storeowner’s outraged “hey!” he keeps going, kicking in the lock of the door that leads to the offices and racing up the stairs.

And there they are, where he’d last heard them. Foggy, and Karen, standing bemused in the lobby of their old offices. Matt launches himself at Foggy and gathers his friend into his arms, and Karen joins the hug, and Matt is surrounded by their scents and the feel of their bodies next to his and their heartbeats, and he knows tears are streaming from underneath his glasses, and he doesn’t care. Because after five years, this is home.

Eventually, they disentangle, and Matt pulls off his glasses to wipe his eyes.

“Not that I don’t love a good hug,” says Foggy, “but what the hell just happened? And what happened to all our stuff?”

There are footsteps on the stairs, and Theo enters. “Fog?” he says. “Fog, the store …”

“I guess you should sit down,” Matt says. “It’s … I mean …”

Karen has her phone out; he can hear her tapping at it, and then she just holds it out and says, “maybe let CNN explain”.

CNN’s reporter sounds pretty much like Matt feels – flabbergasted, ecstatic, confused, overwhelmed. He listens as the others watch the breaking news, as they switch from channel to channel and the full magnitude of what has happened filters out in various tinny voices over Karen’s phone speakers. Eventually, Karen turns the phone off.

“We were dead?” she asks. “We were dead, and you weren’t?”

Matt shrugs. “You were gone,” he says. “You and … half the world.”

“For five years?” Foggy says. “ _Shit_ , Matt.” He suddenly wraps his arms around Matt again, and Matt feels his friend’s body warm against his, and fights back the tears which threaten to well up once more.

“Mom and Pop?” Theo asks.

“They’re good,” Matt says. “They’re fine. They’ll be so glad to see you both.”

“Marci?” says Foggy, a glimmer of something in his voice.

Matt knows he’s blushing, and knows Foggy can see it too, because his friend pulls back from the hug. “She … we … yeah, Marci survived too,” Matt says, after a moment. “And Brett.” He fumbles in his pocket, and pulls out his phone, where there are already three missed calls from Marci.

“Murdock!” she says, when he calls. “Where the _fuck_ are you?”

“The office,” Matt says. “Our office. Not my office. Look …” he puts the phone on speaker, “Marci, I’m with Foggy.”

At the other end of the phone Marci’s voice cracks. “F-Foggy?” she says.

“Alive and kicking,” says Foggy, his voice full of false joviality. “Hey, Marce.”

“Oh my God,” Marci says, just like the client at the precinct.

“Just me,” Foggy replies, but behind the lightness of tone there is heavy emotion in his voice. “And Karen and Theo, obviously.”

“Hey, Marci,” says Karen.

Matt takes the phone off speaker. “Come to my apartment?” he suggests. “Let’s all meet there.”

“On my way,” Marci says, and hangs up.

“We can’t stay here, anyway,” Matt says. “Your parents sold the place. And my apartment is big enough for you all to crash in, until … well, for a few nights, anyway. We’ll work something out.”

They stop on the way out to apologise to the hardware store owner. Matt leaves a card and promises to pay for the broken door, but once they’ve explained things the storeowner settles down, tells them not to worry about the door (“I run a hardware store – I can fix it”) and waves them off.

“Where’s your cane?” Foggy asks, as they leave the shop.

“At the precinct,” says Matt. “I’ll fetch it later.” He falls into step beside Foggy – Foggy’s familiar, steady tread – as though he can see where he’s going. Karen’s long legs easily match their stride on the other side of Matt, and he feels like his heart’s so full it will burst.

Theo is with them still; he hasn’t commented on the lack of cane or the way Matt is behaving, but Matt guesses that the last 30 minutes have been overwhelming enough.

At the apartment he makes them coffee. When he gives Karen her mug she takes it, but stands in front of him, apparently examining him. One hand comes up to touch his temple.

“You’ve got a touch of grey,” she says, with wonder. “And new scars. I wouldn’t have believed it’s been five years, but … this is crazy.”

“It’s been five years,” Matt says. “If it’s crazy, it’s crazy-good.” He catches the sound of Marci’s heels hurrying up the stairs, and goes to answer the door. She takes his hand as she enters, and squeezes it, and they go back hand-in-hand into the living area.

When she sees Foggy, Matt hears her pulse quicken and smells the salt gathering in her eyes; he lets her hand go and stands aside. “Foggy-bear,” Marci says, her voice soft. “Oh, God, Foggy. Don’t ever do that to me again.”

Then they’re laughing and crying and hanging on to each other. Karen comes to Matt and puts her arm around his waist. “You okay?” she asks him.

“Yeah.” Matt nods. “Yeah, I am.”

Karen’s hair still smells of rosemary shampoo and her clothes of the budget detergent she always used. He marvels at the fact, and then tugs her to sit her down.

Foggy and Marci sit down too, but close to each other, and Matt feels something pull at his heart. He’s not sure if it’s joy or sadness, though he knows it should be joy.

“So, what happens now?” Foggy asks.

“We should call Mom and Pop,” Theo puts in. “After that …”

“I guess there’ll have to be something put in place for everyone’s papers,” Matt says, thoughtfully. “After all, you were all declared dead. Your apartments sold. But it’s the same for so many people …”

“If you’re sure we can crash here, buddy,” says Foggy, “we should go and get an inflatable mattress for one of us. And eye-masks, because that billboard’s as bright as ever.”

“Matt, can I talk to you?” Marci asks suddenly, and draws him into his bedroom.

They sit on the edge of his bed and she takes his hand in hers. “Hey,” she says, softly, too quietly for Foggy and Karen and Theo to hear, “how are you doing?”

“It’s so _loud_ ,” Matt says, sighing out a deep breath and realising that it’s true. “Can you hear everyone, out on the streets? I’ve got so used to it being so much quieter.”

“Sounds the same to me,” Marci returns. “But that’s not what I wanted to say. Foggy. You, me, Foggy. How’s that going to work?”

“He loves you. You love him,” Matt says. “That’s simple. I’m glad that we … it’s helped. It’s helped me a lot. This whole thing, the last five years, one of the few good things has been you. But I don’t want to lie to Foggy, not ever again. We tell him, and we face the consequences.”

Marci twists her fingers in his, and he hears the fear in her voice, even though she’s trying to mask it. “Right. Sure. But if Foggy reacts badly, Murdock, I’m blaming you.”

Matt leans over and kisses her, because it’s the last time, and then pulls her to her feet.

Back in the living room Theo is on the phone, and crying; Foggy’s eyes also look reddened.

“Sure. Yeah, Mom, we’ll be over soon,” Theo says. “We love you. Yeah. Yeah, we’ll tell him.” He hangs up, and swallows.

“Mom and Pop say you’re invited to dinner, Sunday,” he says to Matt. “Kind of a welcome home thing.”

Matt smiles at him. “Thanks, Theo.”

“And I’m off to crash at theirs,” Theo adds. “You guys have … stuff.” He hugs Foggy, claps Matt on the back, and kind of waves at Marci and Karen before letting himself out.

There is silence, which Foggy breaks. “So,” he says. “Stuff.”

“You two hooked up,” Karen says. “And now you’re wondering how to break it to us. Well, to Foggy.”

“Uh,” says Marci.

Matt says nothing. He’s listening to Foggy’s heartbeat, Foggy’s breathing, and trying to remember if it always sounded like this.

“Well, I guess we were dead,” Foggy observes, eventually, and in the voice that means he feels a lot but is trying not to show it.

“Foggy …” Marci says, and Matt’s heart aches to hear the pain in her tone. “It wasn’t … it was …”

“It must have been something,” Foggy points out.

“It was friendship,” Matt puts in, because he hates hearing that sound in his friend’s voice. “Companionship. God, Fogs, don’t you understand? Nobody knew you like us. We grieved for you for four _years_. And if finally we found some comfort together, it wasn’t to hurt you.”

“But Matty, it does hurt,” Foggy says. “Marci and me, we were getting married.”

“And now you still can,” Matt says. “We’re not in love, Marci and I, or not with each other.”

Marci steps towards Foggy. Matt can smell the tears on her cheeks. “I love you, you fool,” she says.

“So why’d you sleep with my best friend?” Foggy asks, desperately.

“I’m not blind, unlike him,” Marci says, “and it had been a long four years. Matt was … Matt _is_ a friend. And he’s hot.” Matt can tell she’s shooting him a look, and he smiles at her. “And he gets me, but not like you did. Like you do,” she amends.

“We never meant to hurt you,” adds Matt. “We never thought you’d be here to be hurt.”

Foggy sighs. “I wish you’d found someone else to comfort each other with. Like, I dunno, Jessica Jones, Matty.”

“Snapped,” says Matt, and then realises Jessica, too, will be back now, and probably raging at the world as usual.

“Oh.” There is realisation in Foggy’s voice. “Yeah. I guess we missed a lot, huh?” He takes a deep breath. “Marci – I – you know to me, it’s like I woke up this morning and we were still engaged, and now I’ve found out you cheated on me. And I know you didn’t, not really, but it’s a lot to process. Give me … just give me a couple of days, all right?”

Marci sniffs, but Matt can hear her draw herself together and put on her armour again. “Sure. You know where I am.”

She touches Matt lightly on the arm as she leaves, and then it’s just the three of them. Nelson, Murdock and Page.

“I am sorry,” says Matt.

“Yeah, well,” Foggy says, and lapses into silence again.

Karen puts down her coffee mug with a thud. “And now what?” she says. “Where do we three go from here, Matt? Do we try to just pick up where we left off?”

Matt tries to remember where they left off. It seems an impossible, long-ago dream from a time where everything was beginning to work out.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not … things have changed. I’ve changed.”

“Yeah, the old Matt would never …” starts Foggy, and then bites back his words. “You’re still Daredevilling?”

“Yes,” Matt says, because he promised himself he’d be honest with them.

“Then have you really changed?” Foggy asks. “What’s different?”

Karen takes a sharp intake of breath, and her pulse picks up. Probably, Matt thinks, because she can sense the tension between them, but he doesn’t care.

“I was _alone_ ,” he says. “Do you know, Foggy, how much I used to rely on just hearing you – both of you – every day? You grounded me. Gave me a reason to get up and be normal. Knowing you were there, in the office, just being you. And you were ripped away. So yes, I kept putting on the suit, because it was all I had left. But I realised, eventually, that there were other people out there who c-cared about me, and who I cared about too.”

“Marci,” says Foggy, but already there’s less heat in his voice.

“Marci, and Brett, and his mom, and Claire, and … well, quite a lot of people,” Matt says, and Karen comes to squeeze his hand even as he talks. “I didn’t miss you any less, but I had something else to live for. And it was worth caring about them. Worth listening to them. Worth trusting them.”

“Marci knows about Daredevil,” Karen cuts in, “doesn’t she?”

“And Brett,” Matt admits. “Since the day it happened. The point is, Fogs, that I’m not going to walk away from the problems anymore, but neither am I going to pretend that there’s two people out there. You want Matt Murdock, you get Daredevil. And …” he takes off his glasses, to show Foggy that he means this particularly, “I hope that you can accept that. And forgive me, for Marci. She loves you.”

“Jeez, Murdock, always with the words,” Foggy says, and then he’s across the room and enveloping Matt in a deep, warm, hug. Karen joins it and for the second time in only an hour or so Matt feels like he’s properly home.

When they disentangle, Foggy wipes his face and announces, “Josie’s. Did Josie make it? I need booze.”

“Josie made it,” Matt confirms. “Uh, we should maybe go by the precinct first, for my stuff, and I’m sure Brett would like to see you guys.”

Mahoney is indeed pleased to see Foggy and Karen, although he tells Matt off for leaving his cane (“seriously, Murdock, I had to explain that away to way too many people”). Matt doesn’t care.

Josie, too, seems pleased to see them, although she expresses it in her usual taciturn way, and doles out shots as though the past five years had not happened. They spend the evening getting solidly drunk; Matt has plenty to talk about and it’s easier to do so with a drink in hand. Eventually they stagger back to the apartment, have a brief fight over who sleeps where, and collapse.

Matt wakes the next morning to his phone ringing, the ringtone which tells him – but not the world – that Steve Rogers is calling. As he reaches for it, cursing Josie and her bad alcohol, he remembers the night before and pauses for a moment to listen to Foggy’s warm breathing on the other side of the bed.

Rogers sounds awful – broken, tired and resigned all at once, and Matt takes his phone to the roof.

“I wondered if you’d call,” he says. “My friends are back. Was that – was that the Avengers?”

“Yeah.”

“Then thank you,” Matt says, meaning it. “Whatever you guys did …”

“Nat’s gone,” Rogers cuts in. “I thought you should know.”

“Gone?” asks Matt, a cold chill settling over him.

“It’s too long to explain fully,” says Rogers, “but she gave herself, to save the world. She’s not coming back.”

“I’m so sorry,” Matt says, inadequately. “She was … well. I liked her.”

“She liked you,” Rogers returns. “Respected you. There’ll be an official announcement, later today. Tony Stark died, too – in fact in the end it was Tony who really saved us.”

Matt says nothing. It seems harsh, too harsh, that while the world celebrates rebirth, it means that others have lost. He thinks of Natasha Romanoff and her husky voice and clean, anonymous scent, and the way she walked and carried herself. He wonders what she looked like.

“Well.” Rogers sounds like he wants to say something else. “So.”

“Thank you,” Matt says. “For calling. It’s appreciated. And, you know, for reversing the Snap.”

“It was our mess to fix,” Rogers says.

“Nevertheless. Next time you’re in town, let’s have that drink you cancelled the other week,” Matt suggests.

“Sure. Next time.” Rogers hesitates, and then says, “by the way, I might send someone your way. Kid who could do with a friend round about now. You’ve got a lot in common.”

“How will I know him?” asks Matt.

“He’ll swing by,” Rogers says. “You’ll know him. Thanks, Murdock.”

Rogers hangs up, leaving Matt feeling oddly like the conversation was missing a piece.

Back downstairs, Karen and Foggy are making coffee, complaining about their hangovers and talking about how to find a place to stay, to recover their bank accounts, to restart their lives. Matt accepts a coffee from Karen, and sits down to help them work out what happens next.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be an epilogue/Year 6, as I feel this is needed to wrap up loose ends.


	14. Year 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The authorities leave the memorials up, but the stones become a place of gathering and hope in every city. On the fifth anniversary of the Snap, there is worldwide celebration. Fireworks to rival those of the Fourth of July, and dancing in the streets._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: soppiness ensues.

The authorities leave the memorials up, but the stones become a place of gathering and hope in every city. On the fifth anniversary of the Snap, there is worldwide celebration. Fireworks to rival those of the Fourth of July, and dancing in the streets.

Matt leaves the Daredevil suit at home and goes out with Karen and Foggy and Marci; in Central Park they meet Claire and Luke, Danny and Colleen, and Jessica Jones. The survivors and the Snapped, reunited. There’s an alcohol ban in the park, but Jessica passes a water bottle filled with whiskey around anyway.

“How’s business?” Luke asks Matt, as they wait near the memorial for the promised ceremony.

“Good,” Matt admits. “Turns out when a lot of people have returned from the dead, it’s a good time to be a lawyer. You?”

“Folk also like to drink,” Luke agrees. “I ain’t complaining.”

The atmosphere in the crowd is weird, a mixture of joy and sadness. Matt manages to deal with it until the ceremony is over, and then makes his excuses and heads home to change into his suit and go back out. They all know where he’s gone, and it feels odd to be acknowledging this to such a big group of people.

The Kitchen is quiet. Most people are still in the park. Matt goes from rooftop to rooftop anyway, and eventually finds a spot to perch and listen for trouble.

Instead, he gets unexpected company. There’s a whirring noise in the air, the sound of a body moving fast, and an odd chemical smell that stings Matt’s nostrils. He’s on his feet, billy clubs in hand, by the time a pair of feet land softly on his rooftop, accompanied by a fast-beating, young heart.

“Daredevil, right?” says a voice. Male, light, young, but trying to sound older. Suddenly Matt thinks back to Steve Rogers’ enigmatic phone call, and puts two and two together.

“Captain Rogers said you’d drop by,” he says, stowing his batons.

“Great!” The feet, clad in some sort of artificial material a bit like Matt’s suit from Melvin, pad across the rooftop. “I’m Spider-Man, but I guess you knew that. The captain said we ought to meet. Said you might be able to help … I mean, that we could maybe be helpful to each other.”

Matt focuses, works out that Spider-Man is holding out a hand, and shakes it.

“You seen Captain Rogers lately?” he asks, registering that while the hand is small, it is strong.

Spider-Man’s heart skips. “Didn’t you hear? He’s gone.”

“Gone where?” Matt queries.

“Back in time!” says Spider-Man. “Gave his shield away and everything. Sorry, man. Thought you’d know.”

Matt shrugs. “Been busy,” he says.

“Oh.” Spider-Man seems to deflate a little, but then he bounces on his feet and adds: “So, you got anything exciting on tonight?”

Cocking his head at Spider-Man, Matt wonders just how old the kid is, and what he’s hiding. There’s far too much eagerness in his voice, and Rogers wouldn’t have asked him to look out for someone else if there wasn’t a good reason.

“Just keeping an eye on the Kitchen,” he says, honestly. “Not expecting much, tonight.”

“Because of the stuff in the park?” Spider-Man asks. “Yeah, it’s the same over in Queen’s, that’s why I thought I’d try and find you tonight.” He hops up on to the edge of the roof and sits down, legs swinging over empty space. After a moment, Matt joins him.

“So, you been doing this long?” Spider-Man says, to break the silence, and in a completely innocuous sort of way.

“Doing what?”

“Being Daredevil,” says the kid.

“About seven or eight years,” Matt calculates, after a moment.

“You weren’t Snapped, then,” Spider-Man observes.

“You were?”

Spider-Man sighs, and Matt can hear the tension ratchet up in his skinny body. “From _space_. And then there was a battle, and now I’m … back.”

Matt parses this stream and raises his eyebrows under his mask. Clearly, the boy has been through the wringer. “How old are you, kid?” he asks.

“Twenty-two,” says Spider-Man, too quickly, and lying.

“Try again,” Matt says, drily, fixing him with as hard a look as he can manage through the mask.

“Seventeen,” Spider-Man says. “I should be twenty-two. Wait, how did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Know that I was lying? Can you teach me how to do that?”

Matt finds himself having to suppress a smile at the kid’s enthusiasm. “Probably not,” he says. “I don’t know what I can teach you. But now you’ve found me – if you need me, call.” He pulls his burner from a pocket and tosses it to Spider-Man. “Put your number in there, under S, and I’ll text you. If we’ve lost Captain Rogers, and Iron-Man, I guess us city vigilantes need to look out for each other.”

Spider-Man passes the phone back, and Matt sends him a quick “DD” text.

“Cool,” says Spider-Man, and springs to his feet. “Well, I’d better go, my … I’ve got stuff to do. See you around, DD!”

Matt raises a hand and listens as the kid launches himself off the building and then swings away on a line of the chemical stuff.

In the office the next day he finds himself telling Foggy and Karen about the meeting, managing to dissuade Karen from instantly going on an internet hunt for the kid’s identity.

“I wouldn’t want him digging into me,” he points out, “and he’s got my number. If he’s in trouble, I think he’ll call. Anyway, he’s a genuine Avenger, I’m just …”

“You’re just you,” Karen says, patting his hand. “And I’m glad Hell’s Kitchen has Daredevil, not Spider-Man. Those web things are weird.”

There are other things to worry about than Spider-Man’s identity, in any case. They’ve hired an associate, one of Marci’s interns dissatisfied with corporate life, because there’s more than enough work to go around. Old cases against alleged criminals have been resurrected and people need defending, and that’s just on top of the property and wills work which has kept them busy since the Snapped blipped back into existence.

And there’s a wedding to plan. Foggy and Marci spent a week dancing around each other and then Foggy came late into the office, smelling of Marci in a way that was intimately familiar to Matt.

“Hey, Matty,” he said, coming hesitantly into Matt’s room with a mug of coffee in hand, “can I ask you something?”

Matt had nodded, and Foggy had taken a deep breath and said, “will you be my best man?”

The date was now only a few weeks away, because Marci had pointed out that she had already waited five years longer than she’d had liked. Father O’Malley had found an empty slot in the diary at Clinton Church, and Karen and Claire and two of Marci’s schoolfriends had gone to buy a dress and, judging by Karen’s hangover the following day, drunk a lot of champagne while doing so.

Matt has spent quiet moments on patrol thinking about what to say in his speech, and quiet moments in the office dictating bits of it, but he’s not sure he can manage to say everything he wants to. His feelings about the wedding are complex – happiness, for two of the people he cares about the most; but, he has to admit, some jealousy and worry that a friendship with Mr and Mrs Franklin Nelson will not be the same as a friendship with Foggy and Marci as individuals.

In confession, Father O’Malley tells him he’s far from the first person to have such concerns.

“You’re only human, after all, Matthew,” the priest says.

“Catastrophically so, generally,” Matt says. “I want to just be happy for them.”

“I think you are,” O’Malley says, gently. “At heart, I think you are.”

The night before the wedding, Matt and Theo take Foggy to Josie’s. They brave the eel, and play pool (Matt wins). Foggy gets talkative, and a little maudlin, and reminisces about law school and interning and all the times he and Matt had teamed up against Marci.

“And now I’m marrying her,” he says, with bemusement. “Why am I marrying her, Matty?”

Matt passes Foggy a glass of water. “Because she’s tough, and beautiful, and has you wrapped around her pinky. And you love her.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Foggy downs the water, and chokes a little. “Oh God.”

Theo bashes his brother on the back. “Maybe it’s time I took you home, Fogs. Big day tomorrow. Marci would kill us all if you were late.” There is a pause, and Theo laughs. “He’s gone really pale, Matt.”

“Take him home,” Matt says. “I’ll settle up with Josie. Go on, Foggy.”

Before they leave Foggy envelops him in a boozy, warm, soft hug, and Matt holds him close and breathes in the very Fogginess of him.

“Thanks, Matt,” Foggy murmurs in his ear. “For looking after her.”

“She looked after me,” Matt says. “Go. Sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The church the next day is full. As Matt waits with Foggy at the front of the church, he picks out the people he knows – the Nelsons, naturally; Brett Mahoney and his mother; a number of clients and local storeowners.

When the doors open and Marci comes in there is a collective sigh, like a wind breaking through grass, and Matt hears Foggy’s racing heartbeat pick up again. He rests a hand on his friend’s shoulder, and Foggy says, very quietly, “Matt, she looks stunning.”

Matt is sure that she does. For the rest of the service he focuses on Marci and Foggy, because the din of the congregation would be too much for him otherwise. He hands over the rings, and lets their heartbeats act as a bass counterpoint to Father O’Malley’s measured, lyrical speaking of the words of the ceremony. He comes back to himself when the priest tells Foggy he can kiss his bride, and he joins in the round of enthusiastic applause.

Foggy has relaxed, finally, by the time the afternoon rolls into evening and it’s time for speeches. Marci, typically, has told her father he’s not to speak and starts off with a funny, sharp, short speech that nevertheless shows everyone just what Foggy means to her. Every word of it is truth and it gives Matt a lump in his throat.

Although Foggy is still clearly nervous, he doesn’t have a law degree from Columbia for nothing, and he sails through his own speech with aplomb. This, too, is very much a Foggy speech – it’s self-deprecating, and witty, and clever.

Matt has his speech printed out, and as Foggy finishes off he runs his fingers over the words one more time, making sure he knows what it is he’s saying. He stands up as Foggy sits down, adjusts his glasses, and takes a deep breath.

“I believe it’s traditional for the best man to poke fun at the groom,” he says, to a ripple of laughter. “And Foggy knows as well as I that I have a ton of embarrassing stories I could use. There’s the one about the time someone let a chicken loose in our dorm building. Or about the day the bagels ran out at Landman & Zack.

“But I’m not going to tell those stories. They’re not a true reflection of the man Foggy Nelson is.” Matt zeroes in on his friend next to him, and takes off his glasses. He hears Foggy take a sudden, surprised inhale.

“Foggy Nelson is the type of guy who, on finding out that his college roommate is blind, suggests checking out the hot girls in the cafeteria,” Matt says. “He’s the type of guy who has always put his family first, and his friends second, and his clients third, before he thinks about himself. He believes that people are decent, because he himself is the most decent man I or anyone else in this room will ever meet.”

There is a murmur of assent.

“The day of the Snap was one of the worst days of any of our lives,” Matt continues, “and the day of the Blip was one of the best. And now this day goes right up there, because I get to support my best friend as he marries Marci. I understand it’s also traditional for the best man to say how beautiful the bride looks, and how beautiful her maids of honour look, but I’ll just have to take that one on trust.”

The guests laugh, some of them sounding like they’re not sure if they’re allowed to.

“Marci is one of the smartest people I know,” Matt says, turning towards her too. “We’ve butted heads more than once. And I didn’t get why Foggy liked her, not for a long time. Then I got to know her properly, and I realised she’s not just smart, but she’s loyal, and she’s generous. There’s nobody I’d less like to stand up against in a courtroom, but there’s nobody I’d rather have fighting my corner. And nobody I’d rather have marrying my best friend.”

He puts the piece of thick, Braille-printed paper down, and, making a show of having to feel for it, picks up his champagne instead.

“To Foggy and Marci,” Matt says, and all around him there is the chinking of glass and the fizz of bubbles, and a ripple of applause. Foggy and Marci both get up and hug him.

“That was lovely, Matt,” Marci says softly.

“I’d have preferred the embarrassing stories, honest, Matty,” Foggy says. “I might not have cried at them.” He thumps Matt on the back. “Go on, put your glasses back on, I know you want to.”

Matt grins, a little unsteadily, and puts the glasses back on.

After they have eaten, and drunk, and drunk some more, there is dancing. When Marci and Foggy have danced their first dance, Karen drags Matt onto the floor. In her heels she is as tall as he is, and she rests her chin on his shoulder.

“You should make it look like you’re leading me,” Matt says, into her ear.

“Nobody cares, everyone’s too happy to pay attention,” Karen returns. “Are you happy, Matt?”

He turns them as they reach the edge of the dance floor. “Yes,” he says, with complete honesty. “Yeah. In a way I never thought I could be again. I keep waiting for everything to break.”

Karen’s breath is warm on his ear. “Why should it break?” she asks.

“Because … well, I have a track record,” Matt points out.

“You made it through the last five years without breaking,” Karen says.

“Only just.”

“But you made it,” Karen presses. “Just think, maybe this time nothing will break.” They spin again, and break apart as the music ends. Karen takes his hand in hers and pulls him off the dance floor to a seat. “I was wondering,” she says, hesitant, nervous, “if maybe you wanted dinner, some time.”

Matt rests his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands and remembers a long-ago night in the rain, when Karen’s skin came alive and he tasted spices on her lips. He had been happy that night too, before Elektra reappeared and tore his world apart.

But Elektra is gone, and the world is stitching itself back together.

He reaches out and twines his fingers in Karen’s.

“I’d like that,” he says. “I’d like that very much.”

Karen’s heart skips a beat and settles into a new rhythm. “So would I,” she says, softly.

With the last song played, the guests trickle away from the hotel where the wedding reception has been held. Matt sits and listens to their conversations as they drift off to call cabs. The consensus is that it was a good wedding. Matt has not had much experience of weddings, but he is inclined to agree.

Marci and Foggy come across the empty dance floor and collapse into chairs next to him.

“I don’t know why you wear those shoes,” Matt says, as Marci takes her heels off and props her feet in Foggy’s lap.

“Because they make her legs look amazing,” Foggy says.

“And I can stab someone if I have to,” Marci adds, yawning.

Matt stands up, feeling a rush of fondness for both of them. “Don’t stab anyone tonight,” he tells her.

“Don’t hit anyone tonight,” Marci counters.

Snapping out his cane, Matt shakes his head. “I’ve drunk too much, and I’m in too good a mood. I’m going home, to sleep.” He squeezes Foggy’s shoulder, and kisses Marci’s cheek. “Good night, Mr and Mrs Nelson.”

He leaves them and heads out into the Manhattan night. A siren wails by several blocks away, a subway rumbles under his feet, and the streets are busy. It is a perfectly normal evening, almost as though the past five years have not happened.

Matt pauses, and breathes in deeply, taking in all the nuances of the street. Behind him, he can hear Foggy and Marci giggling as they head upstairs to their room.

He swings his cane out in front of him and walks away. It’s a new world, now, and it has the potential to be a good world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, and there you have it. Thank you _so much_ if you've left kudos, commented or just read this story. It's the longest thing I've written for YEARS - in fact, the longest thing since 2002, unbelievably - and part of the reason I got that far was because people were reading and apparently enjoying. It is massively appreciated.


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